Brian Woudsma, global food director of the Hoyer Group, explains the company’s reasons for deciding to invest in 50 new ISO Reefer tank containers: “The Hoyer Group is a specialist for intermodal transport operations to meet the food sector’s high demands in the overseas area. With customised logistics solutions, we have made a strong name for ourselves in the market. This greatly increased the demand for transport services, which led us to take further strategic steps.” The logistics specialist’s Reefer fleet size has doubled to 100 units.
Digitalisation campaign
Special feature of the new units are the refrigeration units attached to the tank containers, with the latest control technology and integrated stirrers. This system allows the Hoyer Group to guarantee the required temperature is maintained during the entire transport movement within the whole tank space evenly – from loading to unloading.
The heart of the ISO Reefer tank container is the telematics system integrated into the refrigeration controller. As part of its digitalisation campaign, the Hoyer Group is progressively equipping all its tank containers with telematics to measure parameters including location, temperature, pressure and filling level. More than half of the fleet is already “Smart”, and the entire tank container fleet, currently 40,800 units, is scheduled to be equipped as Smart Tanks by the end of 2021.
Combining with an information and warning system that collects all the sensor data and displays it in its own online portal, almost in real time, enables optimum monitoring of the load, with proactive analysis options. This avoids the need to manually create and update complex overview tables. A single glance shows where a tank container is located, whether its temperature, filling level and pressure are within pre-defined limits, or if there is a need to take action. Brian Woudsma says: “Continuous temperature monitoring is especially important when transporting foodstuffs. The system raises an alarm immediately if the temperature deviates.” Correction can take place either through the Smart Portal or directly at the tank container.
Smart Tank and Smart Portal make logistics not only safer and more secure, but also more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly. In addition, there are constant technical optimisations on the tank containers. To achieve this, the Hoyer Group has its own in-house specialists. Chemists, engineers, sales and marketing experts work as a team to drive forward developments. According to Hans Demarest, engineering director of the Hoyer Group: “As a logistics company, having this in-house know-how is a significant competitive advantage and a quality factor. Due to our interdisciplinary collaboration, we are able to find the best solution for every need.” The team also works constantly on payload optimisation of the ISO Reefer tank containers to enable transport movements to be carried out even more efficiently.