The two firms said that the system — based on an existing system by Shimizu but with several items added to manage radioactive contaminants — had been applied to a pilot transfer of removed soil and other objects contracted for by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment, and carried out by a consortium including Shimizu.
In the pilot project, the approximately 5,000 cubic meters of removed soil and other objects monitored by the system was transported from temporary storage sites in five municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture to a storage area on the site of an interim storage facility in Okuma Town. The result was safe, reliable transport and management, with less labor needed for data processing.
As the Shimizu FIT System can comprehensively take care of all the bags containing removed soil while also managing GPS-equipped vehicles, it is capable of handling everything from the removal of the bags from temporary storage sites to their transport by vehicle, as well as their final unloading and storage at the interim storage facility.
The integrated database used by the system maintains the traceability data. Functions can also be added to it to compensate for radio dead zones while maintaining operation by GPS, and to manage the stationary storage of all the bags in the storage area.
In addition, the system employs handy terminals allowing direct data input at worksites, eliminating the need to start over on account of input errors and other kinds of mistakes. That improves work efficiency by about 40% compared with conventional methods.
