For Immediate Release
Contact: Dennis Hill
dennis.hill@ettp.doe.gov
(865) 241-4690
Oak Ridge, Tenn., March 7, 2012 – The RFITS (Radio Frequency Identification Transportation System) Project has supported over 60,000 waste shipments as well as over 10,000 clean-fill shipments from the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) to the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility (EMWMF) since becoming operational in March 2009.
The ETTP RFITS system has demonstrated that the concept for electronically tracked shipments of hazardous materials is a viable concept in supporting the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) waste operations on the Oak Ridge Reservation.
In addition to ETTP, RFITS was implemented for shipments to EMWMF from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in October 2009, and from the Y-12 National Security Complex in March 2010.
Implementing the RFITS Program involved creating a reusable and sustainable technology to collect key information about each shipment and display it on an interactive dashboard enabling EMWMF to manage inbound shipments in real-time.
Trucks hauling waste along the haul road to EMWMF are tagged electronically before leaving the site. These electronic tags contain information about the truck and its load, replacing paper shipping manifests and other crucial information that would normally be on paper.
Once tagged, the truck is tracked to its destination by strategically placed monitoring stations along the haul road that read the tag to monitor its progress.
RFITS has been recognized by DOE as a “Best-in-Class” system and has recently won awards from the Environmental Protection Agency as well as the Department of Energy.
In addition to increased performance and paper reduction associated with shipments to EMWMF, RFITS has enabled multiple eco-friendly benefits and contributed to reductions in CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions. Advantages include:
Centralized viewing at EMWMF of all incoming shipments
Increased awareness in physical security
Increased visibility and access to data
Increased Truck Utilization
Increased performance
Increased accountability
Reduction of bottlenecks
Reduction of errors