Leading the Industry, the “Wright” Way

All things in the quarrying process think loaders, dumpers, excavators, crushers and trucks have sensors or load cells offering the capability to stream data which can be actioned in real-time or periodically reviewed. Instrument data capture delivers means to identify bottlenecks and create solutions, to everyday problems resulting in business automation and efficiency. WrightZone International, New Zealand based, software and solutions technology provider is leading the way with its suite of software products that connects weights and measure devices to a single data repository. Sharing the journey of Wrightzone with us today is Aaron Wright-St Clair, Founder and Director with noteworthy and inspiring thoughts that will motivate you to dream beyond.

The Rising Days

Prior to WrightZone, Aaron was an Australasian B for a reseller of E Software applications until the C hit, making him redundant after years of service. Built from existing relationships WrightZone started its journey providing independent business analysis and consulting services on client existing, enterprise software. However, from this clientele, a recurring issue was the disconnect between the finance and industrial divisions of the business. The solution saw the invention of the WZlugin and WZServices applications in, delivering opportunity to integrate the bespoke. Termed in todays’ world as an E Electronic data interchange, application interface or more simply, middleware. These applications produced real-time integration between systems removed user intervention and the need for manual imports and exports, while mitigating risks associated with data loss if a catastrophe and/or systems failure should occur at the local site. In July 2013  WrightZone were contracted to scope suitable Weighbridge Software applications and providers for Brookby Quarries. Unable to make a recommendation based on required specifics, they identified a market gap. There were no enterprise applications in New Zealand, only a few choices out of Australia and these options were still legacy systems some of which are still available today as they were, years ago. With a passion for construction and mining, they self-funded and began the build of what was to be New Zealand’s only locally manufactured enterprise-weighbridge software application in November. As WZWeigh has grown from the mining and metals industry, into the agriculture sector and beyond, it has experienced increased interest and application overseas’ reasoning WrightZone International’s incorporation in 2016. Today, WrightZone with its pilot application WZWeigh consists of WZoad, WZBulk and POSWeigh, all- inclusive.  non-modular application delivering a 360 degrees approach to anything that is to be weighed and measured. With over 1000, users and some, transactions being processed a month the reality is, we’re still in our start-up phase says Aaron. WZWeigh is a technologically superior turnkey solution for the mining metals, Quarry, waste and agricultural weighing, industries. The WZWeigh Software with or without a weighbridge forms the foundation of material management workflows, opportunity and success. Feature rich with demand and production forecasting, complete audit tracking of transactional changes, resource consent compliance and, interoperability with Outlook and Excel. Coupled with a server-side processing engine, delivers deep analytical reporting in both transactional and graphical formats for operational visibility and control. WZLoad simplifies demand and production outputs for the loader driver because it’s a tablet connected to loader scales offering single-touch-to-load. This digital communication between the scale house and/or truck and loader drivers, accurately tracks scale data. This offers tonnes per hour, target versus loader, versus weighbridge net weights vehicle wait, load and onsite duration time, metrics.  reduction in wait times increases trac throughput and customer retention through customer satisfaction. WZBulk, their most recent product release for bulk haulage transport companies delivers fleet planning and scheduling, from logistics managers, as instruction or works orders to truck drivers, on a tablet. WZBulk delivers connectivity to any-site weighbridge scales allowing truck drivers to click, capture the tare and gross weights for their customers exporting this data into their accounting system Xero, MYOB and more for invoicing. This solution mitigates the receipt and wait times of manual dockets, spreadsheet input and/or accounts payable invoices delivered from the Quarry. Fleet managers can update and edit the driver job-sheet at any point but the real competitive edge is offering the capability to transact while offline with synchronization occurring natively on connectivity restoration. POSWeigh is an unmanned Point of Sale software solution providing a self-service kiosk. Offering another means of digital communication between truck and loader drivers with or without a weighbridge. The result is security, health and safety, extended trading hours, automation, lower overheads and driver self-sufficiency. Features include pre-emptive driver instruction with the re-Entry planning and scheduling toolset, digital templates for easy processing of non-account customers and/or first time users with pre-population of all data for vehicles On-un.  ready with gate and trac light controls available Split-Load, Semi-Trailer Truck, and Compartment loading under full, single or dual single weighbridge configurations. Our clients are in, on and under the ground, often in remote areas, it’s hard to imagine that not km’s from Auckland’s Sky Tower we have a client with zero telco, cell phone and mobile data coverage this is common ground says, Aaron. In this industry every second is weighed and measured therefore continued operations are business critical. The enterprise design of WZWeigh being that of multi-master replication, allows data to be stored by a group of computers and updated by any member of the group which is not the case, in the more common master-slave architecture. When the Cloud is uncontactable local operations will resume with synchronization automatically occurring on restoration. Should the local database go down, only then, is the Cloud employed with WZWeigh Clients automatically rerouted to a secondary database, for uninterrupted operations. “Just last month “the server went Pop…..working to restore it”. Aaron shares, This was a Loader only site, employing WZoad in normal conditions, communicates securely with the main WZWeigh database over. Now, the restore took  hrs which was not our responsibility but the opportunity cost of going to paper, manually back-loading like data into another system or not even having such a system increases overheads by , being an unnecessary cost to the bottom line.  When we built all our applications redundancy was paramount not only because no-one else was offering it but because it’s the smart thing to do while the weighbridge is being serviced or experiences a mechanical fault use the loader scales and vice versa. f the loader scales fault use a tablet, coupled with loader driver experience, the job will get done. The system is scale and instrument agnostic offering business owners the choice of new, or reuse of existing hardware, continuing with this philosophy the same is true for communication being a choice of, Wii, Radio and Offline.

Vision Ahead

Currently they are trailing the subscription option for a few select offering unlimited upgrade and Support Services. They’ll be migrating WZoad and WZBulk from bit applications to being bit having it available for the Android OS before Christmas. Automated time capture from dispatch through to delivery, per works-order is also on their product road-map for bulk haul transport providers. The existing software is jobbing based. WrightZone is experiencing strong interest in Bill of materials processing, eluding to interoperability with belt weighers, crusher screens and like instrumentation. Tracking these outputs will see material data captured from origin, through-out processing, to delivery. “We take our lead from our existing and potential clients we offer an amazing and highly skilled in-house development team that ensures we take the disparate and the hard out of daily operations. Our difference communicated by our clients”. “Stable operation, ease of customisation to meet the peculiarities of each site. Support during operating hours, future proofing for expansion to allow greater use of data automation, strength of the vendor and its personnel”. Says, John Shea CO aipara uarries.