CQ brothers launch TRAKKIT, industrial storage solution, in Emerald

Two Central Queensland men have invented a new machine, likened to a ‘mega vending machine’ to manage stock and prevent thefts in heavy industries.

Two Central Queensland brothers have combined their skills to create a new “world first” machine which prevents onsite theft and helps manage stock, predominantly across the mining industry.

Craig Dahlenburg, owner of Emerald’s Filter and Industrial, and his brother Peter, have developed TRAKKIT, a heavy industry inventory management system.

The technology works like a traditional vending machine, securely stocking heavy industry consumables, tools and equipment in a 20ft or 40ft solid steel portable shipping container.

Workers can access what they need in three simple steps through trackable, permission-based login access.

“TRAKKIT works exactly like a vending machine, stocked with all your heavy industry tools and consumables,” Craig Dahlenburg said.

“All a user needs to do is request an item via the product search interface at the front of the machine, and TRAKKIT finds and delivers it automatically, on average within 45 seconds.”

Peter and Craig Dahlenburg.

The pair has been working on the machine for about five years after they couldn’t find anything like it in Australia or across the world.

“We kicked this off as a bit of a side project – looking at ways to automate inventory on remote or regional sites,” Mr Dahlenburg said.

“[Peter] had some robotics and automation experience and we started looking at how we could use that technology in something portal and reliable, and heavy duty for mining and remote sites.”

The brothers both completed diesel fitting apprenticeships at Gregory Mine before heading their separate ways and later used their joint knowledge to develop TRAKKIT.

Mr Dahlenburg said they had three prototype machines in and around Emerald and had since had interest from businesses in remote areas across the country, including gold mines out west.

He said the machines were fairly customisable, housing compartments as small as 100 x 100mm for “tiny little washers”, with the biggest being about 600 x 500 x 400mm, with the ability to hold about 50kg.

“We’ve made our design pretty modular so we can dispense most things without too much hassle,” Mr Dahlenburg said.

“It can handle anything from PPE equipment, spare parts, industrial supplies, returnable tools to tiny 2.5g washers.

“Anything that will fit into the machine’s extra-large bins stacked neatly inside.”

TRAKKIT is a new heavy industry inventory management system.

TRAKKIT allows instant user access to stock through the on-site interface or the mobile app, with a supervisor able to give trackable access to employees or contractors to anything in the machine with a click of a button wherever they are in Australia.

“As long as you get an internet connection you can dispense any product to anyone from anywhere,” Mr Dahlenburg said.

“If you’re sitting in your office in Emerald and want to dispense something in Alice Springs, you just hit the button and it will just go.

“All transactions are pushed live to the cloud, so automated functions like low stock reordering become a breeze.”

He said it created a nice, flexible way to make people responsible and accountable for things.

“It helps to make sure there’s stuff on hand all the time, while reducing theft and reducing shrinkage and those things that are hard to do unless you have a dedicated store man.”

The brothers will now focus on moving towards the commercial phase, getting the machines deployed to work sites across the country.

For more information, visit the TRAKKIT website or contact Craig or Peter at either [e-mail] or [e-mail].