SOP
User Management
Creating, suspending and editing user accounts.
Project Retrospective · 2023
Rackit Direct RFID Security Programme
In 2023, Rackit Direct Ltd ran an R&D programme to design tamper-evident RFID security systems for warehouse logistics — a smart truck seal, a high-value transport cage, and the software to track every seal through its life. This is how it worked, and the documentation, specification and testing effort behind it.
Developed for evaluation by a major global e-commerce logistics operator.
The Problem
Freight seals are the last line of defence on a truck door. A conventional plastic seal proves nothing except that someone remembered to fit it: checking one means a person at a gatehouse reading a serial number off a tag, by torchlight, in the rain.
Three failure modes drove the programme: seals that can be cut and convincingly replaced, gatehouse checks that take minutes per vehicle, and no audit trail connecting a seal's state at departure to its state on arrival.
The answer was a seal that carries its own tamper evidence — a UHF RFID chip with tamper-status memory bits that scanners can read in seconds and log to a central audit trail.
The System
Four components, one audit trail. Select a component to see its role.
SealSecure X Seal
A single-use cable seal built around a UHF RFID chip with tamper-status memory bits. Closing the cable circuit sets the seal's A bit; cutting it clears it. Two further bits — B (has ever been locked) and C (has been cut after locking) — are maintained in the cloud database, so a seal cannot be cut and re-presented as new.
The Seal Lifecycle
The whole system reduces to one state machine. Use the scanners below to walk a seal through its life — every transition, bit value and operator message here comes from the programme's software specification.
Seal state
UNREGISTERED
A=0 B=0 C=0
New seal taken from store — not yet registered.
Handheld scanner (yard)
Gate scanner (arrival)
Gatehouse Dashboard — Simulation
A working miniature of the audit concept: a simulated fleet of demo seals cycling through registration, locking, transit and gate arrival. All data is synthetic and illustrative — seal IDs are DEMO-prefixed and generated by this page.
connecting…
| Time (UTC) | Seal | Scanner | State | A·B·C | Message |
|---|
Documentation: the SOP set
The RFID High Value Cage system shipped with an eight-document Standard Operating Procedure set — the operational manual for the people who would use it daily. Three of the eight were researched and written by Sam McLennan, and the full set was submitted for executive approval on 12 June 2023.
SOP
Managing Information
Maintaining system and site information.
SOP
Viewing Events Live
Monitoring cage access events in real time.
SOP
Managing Events
Reviewing, filtering and acting on recorded events.
SOP
Personnel Access via Mobile Application
Day-to-day cage access for authorised staff.
SOP
Reports
Generating and interpreting system reports from the management dashboard — written for non-technical operational staff.
✍ Authored by Sam McLennan
SOP
Managing Your Details
End-user procedures for account and personal-detail management.
✍ Authored by Sam McLennan
SOP
Managing Roles
Administrator procedures for role-based access control within the system.
✍ Authored by Sam McLennan
Sam McLennan's Contributions
Documented in the programme's project records, June–July 2023.
12 June 2023
SOP authorship
Researched and wrote three of the eight Standard Operating Procedures for the High Value Cage system — Reports, Managing Your Details, and Managing Roles — submitted the same day to the Managing Director for approval.
12 June 2023
Training material review
Part of the review group for the test version of the SOP instructional material, checking documentation and linked material before the package was finalised.
16 June 2023
SealSecure X specification
Named editor on the software specification for the RFID truck-seal system: the seal state model, handheld and gate-scanner decision workflows, and the cloud audit database design.
Summer 2023
Prototype testing & hardware
Hands-on testing of RFID seal prototypes — exercising locked, cut and tampered states and verifying scanner readings against the specification — plus setup and configuration of the scanner hardware used in the test programme.
11 July 2023
Customer presentation
Contributing editor on the technical presentation prepared for the programme's customer.
About Sam McLennan
Sam joined the programme team in 2023, working alongside the technical lead and a fellow developer. His contributions sat at the point where a working system becomes a usable product: operational documentation written for non-technical staff, methodical hands-on verification of hardware against a written specification, and collaboration on the specification and customer materials themselves.
He has since completed an NC in Computing with Cyber Security (Ayrshire College) and two years of full-time voluntary service in the United States, where he served as a district leader responsible for training and supporting a team.
Read the full project involvement statement
References available on request from Rackit Direct Ltd.