The following post was written by Steve Diebold.

Steve Diebold is Security Applications Specialist and manages global sales for American Casting & Mfg. from their international sales office. He has over 40 years of experience in advising customers and supplying seals in all sectors of industry, government and the military, and has worked with seal users in over 60 countries.

Security seals are utilized primarily for tamper evidence. They have seemingly unlimited applications, including many areas of the dairy industry. Such cases include tanker fleets, processors.

I've attended multiple tank truck and tank wash events. During these, I hear from drivers, operations managers, fleet owners, and others; “Is this seal worth the trouble?”

The answer: “Yes, it surely can be.”

Security seals are essential in quality and safety assurance. When used properly, they go a long way in terms of security. The dairy industry has been ahead of the game. Over the years, said industry has used security seals for food safety protocols, even predating the moves made by government agencies to do the same. It's easy to see why seals are vital to the dairy industry, transportation or otherwise.

AC&M develops and distributes tamper evident seals to several industries, milk and dairy operations among them. We create plastic pull up security seals that can fit valves, hatches, closures on trucks, gates, control boxes, among other areas in need of security. Metal seals are also offered, providing additional strength in instances where plastic isn't strong enough for the needed application.

WHAT CAN SECURITY SEALS DO FOR YOU?

Seals that are placed on tank trucks and critical valves will show evidence of tampering, opening, or theft.

Furthermore, seals offer value to your company in general. Seals assist with cataloging and recording installation and removal, who installed it, inspection times, and other factors. Users can easily identify routes, drivers, crew names, customers, and batches, tank types, facilities, among other data points that will be recorded.

These goals are accomplished by color coding and some custom marking of seals. Bar coding and other markings can also be applied to different seals. When you purchase from us, we ship seals by colors, marks, destination, etc., delivering said seals wherever needed.

Imagine that a hauler must assign a specific color seal to a destination facility or a fleet of vehicles. In either instance, numbering and coding could be linked to dates, batches, contracts, or other indicators by week, month etc.

An operation might identify wash types for each tank; this is done with different markings for specific groups or types. Another possibility is a color specific to a tank of wash slurry vs empty tanks, vs. filled tanks with raw products, vs. tanks washed and verified, and so on. Barcodes help provide additional data, which is then used when a seal is installed, inspected or removed.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT USING SECURITY SEALS

Coordination and effort are needed to ensure that security seals are used at the highest level. Training, communication, and consistent quality assurance checks are needed so that proper use is seen across the board.

To identify and reduce security seal tampering, there are a few things to know. Anyone responsible for attaching, inspecting, transporting, or removing seals should educate themselves. A few details to know include the following:

●How to lock and inspect the seal

●How to spot tampering, opening, or manipulation of the seal

●How to make sure the security seal is authentic 

●Procedures and documentation in place for each event

WE CAN HELP

The amount of monitoring that is best for your operation and what data will help you to control and improve your operations will vary. However, American Casting & Manufacturing can guide you through the seal selection and application process. With our experience and versatility, we will help you find the best seal for your needs.

All seals are not the same, however. The tamper evident and security seals we supply are made by a 4th generation family-owned company based in New York. We control everything from the verified high-quality raw materials through all steps of production and fast reliable shipping. Our warehousing and custom stock planning allows us to get you the right seals to you on time, keeping quality top of mind.

Beyond overall quality, and faster delivery, we offer much more. American Casting & Manufacturing can help you choose the right seals and provide personalized assistance to help you more effectively apply them. We can assist with instructional documents or advice and training for installing and inspecting the seals.

Our staff members are leading experts and the most experienced individuals in the security seals business. We’ve been making all types of security seals at our US factory for over 100 years.