Aluminum Plant

Inventory information & Safety

The customer is an aluminium plant in Iceland. The material (alumina) they receive to feed the operation must be dispatched well in advance as it is delivered by vessels from distant suppliers around the globe.
The alumina is received into a large silo from which it is drawn into operation.To maximise production, it is vital to ensure the silo is close to empty when a ship arrives so that the maximum-sized shipment can be received without halting production.To achieve this, precise knowledge of the volume of material in the silos is critical to make the optimal dispatching decisions in a long lead-time environment.
The customer also encountered operational challenges during vessel unloading due to the inability to adjust the silo’s 17 filling points individually, which resulted in uneven material distribution during loading. To address this, operators were only able to slow the loading process to allow the material to redistribute more evenly. By observing this process during the ship unloading, the operators were able to adjust the filling points to achieve a more uniform distribution, ultimately leading to a reduction in unplanned and costly berthing times for the customer.