Catch fuel theft and failing generators

How it works

Each generator day records fuel in, fuel used, power out and running hours. Opening stock plus fuel added minus fuel used must equal closing stock; Cost per unit is worked out, never typed in. Falling output with steady fuel suggests wear; falling output with rising fuel needs investigating.

Step by step

Take a mall, hospital or factory with several diesel generator sets. Today the operator fills a daily sheet and management reads the monthly total. This is how it runs in Kinnow.

1. Record each set, each day. The operator enters opening stock, fuel added, fuel consumed and closing stock from the tank dip, plus power produced (in kWh) and run time in minutes. Price per unit can be added if known.
2. The tank has to add up. Kinnow checks that opening plus added minus consumed equals closing. If it does not, the reading is refused and the screen names the difference, so somebody checks the dip rather than the whole sheet.
3. Fuel moved between sets is recorded as a move. A litre shifted from one generator to another is entered as transfer out and transfer in, not as a purchase, so it is not counted as bought twice. The other side can be named, which matters when diesel goes to a cherry picker rather than a generator.
4. Cost per unit is worked out. It cannot be typed. A day with no power produced shows no rate, with a note that this is not a rate of zero.
5. The watch compares each set with itself. Kinnow tracks power per litre against that set's own baseline. Output falling while fuel use stays steady points to wear. Output falling while fuel use rises needs a person to investigate. Days with no output do not drag the baseline down.
6. The month is summarised. Management sees days recorded, totals, a daily diesel chart and a daily cost chart, with unpriced days marked as such.

What you see on screen

The screen is called Operating logs, in Maintain.

• The log: a table with Date, Asset, Added, Consumed, Produced, Run time, Cost per unit and Yield. A dash with a tooltip stands in where there was no output.
• Record a reading: fields for opening stock, added, consumed, closing stock, produced, run time and price per unit. A note says Cost per unit is calculated from the figures above and cannot be entered by hand.
• Tank check message: These figures do not add up, with the number by which they differ.
• Month summary: days recorded and totals, with Not recorded in this log book shown where nothing was kept, since that is different from zero.
• Trends: Daily diesel consumed and Daily diesel cost. Where fuel was burned and no price is recorded, the chart says the fuel was burned and there is no cost to show yet.

Who uses it