GC MT-Integration Implemented a 3D Control System for Fertilizer Warehouse Stocks at EuroChem

The MT-Integration Group of Companies has completed a project to create an automated system for three-dimensional monitoring of nitrogen fertilizer warehouse stocks. The project was implemented at EuroChem’s production complex in Kingisepp. For the first time in Russia, continuous laser 3D scanning technology was integrated into an industrial urea storage warehouse and included in the enterprise’s production loop.

The system determines the actual volume of products in the warehouse in real time without stopping the technological process. A full inventory takes about 20 minutes, and the measurement error is less than 2%. This makes it possible to promptly use up-to-date data for production accounting, inventory management, and logistics planning. With manual mine surveying measurements, the process takes significantly more time, and accuracy depends, among other things, on the unevenness of the product pile and the accessibility of individual sections of the warehouse.

To create an objective picture of the warehouse’s state, the specialists used a combined approach. It combined laser scanning and radar distance measurement technologies. The system forms a digital 3D model of the warehouse, on the basis of which the software automatically calculates the volume of products and, given known density, its mass. Specialists from the MT-Integration Group of Companies developed the engineering architecture of the solution, integrated the measuring equipment into the enterprise’s production loop, and ensured data transfer to corporate information systems.

Based on the test results, the system was approved for use in production inventory accounting and certified in Russia as a measuring instrument by the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology.

“We are consistently expanding the scenarios for using laser 3D scanning. For several years, this technology has been working in our SNEG project, where it helps automatically measure the volumes of snow masses arriving at snow-melting stations. Now we are transferring the expertise accumulated in municipal services to industry. In the project for EuroChem, we solved a different task — continuous high-precision monitoring of product inventories. We see potential for such solutions for enterprises in the chemical, mining, and construction industries, as well as port logistics facilities,” said Vitaly Barannikov, General Director of the MT-Integration Group of Companies.

“We are consistently expanding the application of new technologies, in particular laser 3D scanning. This project not only solved the task of continuous high-precision monitoring of finished product warehouse stocks, but also created a foundation for a more complex system — automated shipment management,” said Nikolai Ptitsyn, Head of the Digitalization Department of EuroChem’s Project Office.