Gerdau Aza S.A. (http://www.gerdauaza.com) is a metal recycling and processing plant in Chile. Gerdau Aza is building five recycling plants in different locations in Chile. The first one is a pilot project in Temuco in southern Chile:  Panamericana Norte Km. 18 1/2, Colina, Santiago de Chile.  ACTi’s authorized reseller, Vigicam Ltda, provided an ACTi’s unified solution for the first pilot project. “The ACTi unified solution was composed of free 16-channel NVR software and the bandwidth efficient IP cameras which allow my customer to seamlessly combine the license plate recognition tasks with security monitoring requirements, said, Mr. G. Luca Vergazzoli, president of Vigicam Ltda.

One of the first pilot run’s requirements was the use of two all-in-one, weatherproof outdoor IP cameras to monitor the access point in order to take still images at incoming and outgoing trucks and match the still images with the license plate of the trucks and all data stored in Gerdau Aza’s data system.  Also, Gerdau Aza specifically required an IP speed dome camera in order to monitor all area efficiently and freely (about 2 metric hectares).  Besides the needs of monitoring the outside area of the Temuco plant, an IP fixed dome camera was installed indoor, in the head office and it was equipped with a microphone and a speaker in order to permit a full interoperability with Gerdau Aza’s headquarter 700 km away.              

This is the first project and it will be replicated in four more plants in Chile: in Iquique, Antofagasta, Quintero and Concepcion.

The solution was an ACTi NVR Server interconnected with:

·        ACM-1431 for Truck Weighting Point (2 cameras: one for the truck and one for the trail)

·        ACM-1431 for truck plate recognition

·        ACM-3100 for the main office

·        CAM-6620 in the middle of the field at 15 metres high on a pole

Nelson Rozas, National Buyer Manager of Gerdau Aza S.A, commented: “We already have analog systems installed in different plants but we wanted to upgrade the systems and start using IP solutions which we know is the future. I believe that we can get the best from ACTi’s technology because of its flexibility and the unlimited scalability that it has.”

System Architecture