Cable manufacturer Aberdare Cables has developed new power cable identification technology to combat the theft of copper cables.
Copper cable theft directly costs the South African economy more than R5 billion a year in losses incurred by service providers such as Eskom, Telkom, Transnet and municipalities. Indirect costs such as labour to replace cable, downtime and logistics more than double this amount. Then there are the costs of business and production losses that reduce profit in commerce and industry. Copper cable worth an estimated R15 million a month is stolen in South Africa and as an example of the economic impact, 3000 tons of copper leaves Cape Town harbour each month, not to mention the country’s other ports.
In the identification of stolen cable, Aberdare has teamed up with its technology partners to develop two solutions that suit different applications.
The first solution, which was developed by Aberdare’s technology partner Recoveri and tested at Aberdare’s factories, comprises a copper strip which is engraved with a unique code and inserted into each of the copper conductors and which is then used to identify the manufacturer as well as the purchaser of the product. A SAP database which is administered by Aberdare houses this information which may be queried to prove ownership of the product when marked stolen cable is discovered or to report on stolen cables when the purchaser himself has recorded the installed marked cable.
The second solution is based on the engraving of a unique code directly onto the copper or aluminium conductor or its components using specialist laser technology developed by Traceability Solutions. Similar to the first solution, the information may also be queried from the SAP database to establish ownership of the product.
A company in the Powertech group, Aber-dare Cables is implementing these cost-effective technologies in its cable manufacturing operations in Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg and Port Elizabeth.
Henni Scholtz, general manager of product development and application at Aberdare, says that the two unique marking solutions will enable law enforcement agencies to identify stolen cables from the bare copper or aluminium conductors, to within one metre. He added that all suspected stolen cable marking codes can be queried through the Aberdare Helpdesk. The purchaser and batch details of the cable are given immediately and in this way, ownership is established. Customers have the option of also reporting stolen marking codes so that these may be flagged as such in the database. Inexpensive optical reading devices are used to identify the codes.
For more information contact Aberdare Cables, +27 (0)11 396 8000.
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