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Apps for last mile logistics

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What Shelter In Place Means for Fuels and Lubes Distributors

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What impact will coronavirus have on fuels and lubes distribution? Specifically, how will it impact petroleum and bulk product logistics.

The mandate to Shelter In Place and keep social distancing is coming to your town. Making that transition is not easy when you have an essential business that involves physical goods distribution. Warehouse personnel must load your trucks, and drivers have to make deliveries.

Other critical personnel, such as dispatchers and office staff, should be able to work from home if you have the right connectivity (VPN network access, IP-based phone system). 

If you need help or have questions about setting up WFH, feel free to ask us. We can provide technology suggestions and help you work with a local resource since we’ve had a Work From Home (WFH) infrastructure for 10+ years.

This is our perspective on US logistics, not the free fall of oil prices. 

BizSpeed’s take on the coronavirus impacts on logistics:

WFH highlights the limitations of paper-based dispatch and delivery – If your delivery process is paper-based, dispatchers need to be present to assemble trips and distribute orders to drivers who must interact with each other and warehouse workers to complete their routes. During the delivery route, customers must accept proof of delivery documents. At the end of the shift, the back-office staff must physically handle the paperwork to re-key orders into the billing system.

Routing and dispatch + a mobile app will be the cost of doing business – A piece of paper can only be at one place at a time.  When your operation transitions from paper to electronic documents, you can centralize and reassign dispatching work. Now you can avoid situations where a depot can only be dispatched by the local dispatcher, who is unable to work because of illness. Centralizing dispatch gets the tribal knowledge out of dispatchers’ heads and into a live system that can adapt as needed.

Lower order volumes require increased delivery efficiency – The effort to distribute product MUST be more efficient to maintain margins when business is down. When business is booming, it’s easy to make unprofitable deliveries because they’re averaged in with more profitable ones. Now that delivery volumes are down 20% or more, the margin for error is smaller, so you have to ensure you’re optimizing routes and maximizing truck capacity. Also, when you’re using a modern routing system, you can get the needed metrics to take action against unprofitable deliveries.

Increased need to monitor and forecast tanks – Target your Keep-full (VMI) tanks for delivery efficiency such that your average delivery is 70% of the tank capacity. If you don’t record your delivery metrics, and tank monitor data in a tank database for tank forecasting, you’re likely to be making inefficient deliveries. Deliveries cost a minimum of $100/stop, plus loaded transportation at $1.75/mile. Unneeded stops will increase your costs and erode margin. Use tank forecasts to hit the 70% efficiency mark so that you can strike a balance between customer service, transportation costs, and profitability.

Importance of streamlining the Order To Cash (OTC) cycle – Paper-based dispatch and delivery are inherently inefficient and slow. To get paid faster, you have to shorten the order to payment cycle. Our most efficient ExxonMobil distributors have reduced their OTC to 2 days versus the industry average of 20 days.

Inventory control is critical as theft will increase – The worst scenario is the combination of a bad customer and a bad driver. The financial stress on drivers and customers can increase the temptation for theft. A higher likelihood for theft means you MUST have better processes to track inventory that goes on the truck, know what is delivered to customers, and what is retained. If you’re delivering fuel, you MUST have better BOL integration and tracking so you can match BOLs with electronic DTN transactions. Tracking customers deliveries using meter integration on bulk products and auditing meter totalizers will track all inventory transactions, including retained products electronically for audit reports.

Spotlight on inventory and demand forecasting – Demand forecasting has a direct impact on inventory and carrying costs. Under normal circumstances, demand and inventory forecasting can be relatively straightforward. With so many of your customers working from home (WFH), the ability to make informed inventory purchases is critical to conserving capital. Similar to the tank forecasting capabilities, our system can use the delivery history to forecast demand for procurement.

It’s hard to forecast the impact of coronavirus. Some industries, like travel and hospitality, will continue to face lower revenues until we’re past the social distancing and stay at home requirements. Other sectors, such as manufacturing, may move back to the US or increase domestically, which will increase demand for bulk materials moving forward. All of these factors will play into price instability for the foreseeable future.

Companies that are agile and able to respond with better customer service and logistics efficiency have an opportunity to increase margin and gain market share as the economy recovers. If you’re interested in being agile, we’d like to work with you.

Mettler-Toledo and Fairbanks Truck Scale Integration via Mobile App

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goRoam is an iOS and Android app that interfaces with Mettler-Toledo and Fairbanks truck scales to calculate how much bulk product (fuel, lubes, chemicals, gases) is on a truck. goRoam supports the FB3000 and FB2550 from Fairbanks and the Mettler IND780 (IP based) scale indicators.

BizSpeed’s goRoam mobile app is specifically designed for last mile logistics for bulk products, including fuels, lubes, chemicals, gases and other bulk materials.  As part of the delivery process, we record what is loaded on the truck.  Many bulk products, such as sodium hypochlorite (bleach), can only have volume calculated by weight.

When loading by weight, a driver can weigh on a Fairbanks or Mettler scale.  goRoam has a proprietary scale monitor that reads the scale when the driver weighs heavy.  The weight of the tractor and trailer are subtracted to a get a net product weight.

goRoam uses the net product weight and applies the product density (weight/UOM) to calculate the total volume on the truck. This is applied to the goRoam load ticket which is the transferred to the truck as inventory.  As the driver makes deliveries, goRoam deducts the inventory transactions so a dispatcher can see the current inventory throughout a driver’s trip.

When a trip’s last order is complete, if there is inventory on the trailer, goRoam automatically sends an email to the depot to let them know the trip is complete and the truck/trailer still has XX gallons of product. This gives the dispatcher an opportunity to add another stop so the driver can empty their trailer before returning.  If that is not an option, it alerts the warehouse or bulk plant so they know what to expect in receiving.

Upon returning to the bulk plant, the driver weighs light, and goRoam calculates the actual quantity left on the trailer using our scale weight reader service. This volume should closely match what was tracked with the trailer’s inventory. If not, this is your first clue to see if the driver incorrectly recorded a delivered quantity, or perhaps you have a theft issue.

Updated Customer Portal

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After collecting feedback from customers, we’ve released a new version of our customer portal based on the latest web technologies in our Raptor web app.  This is fully responsive so your customers can view order history and unit filling on a laptop, tablet, or phone.  

We are sunsetting the previous version of the portal as the current one unifies all access through our Raptor web app.

You can setup portal access and provide history to a single location (ship-to address) or to all related sites.

The portal allows your customers to:

  • View order history 
  • Export order history to Excel
  • Print PDF delivery receipts
  • View upcoming (scheduled) orders
  • Search and export unit filling data to Excel

Customers ONLY see data for sites they have been assigned. 

Customer order search

View order details

Unit filling search & export to Excel

DFOA Mobile App

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DFOA distributors (Distribute For Our Accounts) need a mobile app that supports DFOA specific requirements. BizSpeed’s goRoam mobile app and MobileHub app server understand DFOA requirements and filter DFOA line items, such as ‘Handling fee – Shell’, so DFOA customers only see relevant line items. Non-DFOA customers see all line items and fees. 

As a DFOA distributor, the manufacturer pays transportation costs, but you need to ensure customers do not see DFOA related charges such as handling fees. 

BizSpeed’s goRoam mobile app is designed specifically for lubes and fuels distributors – including 15 years of industry-specific workflow requirements to support bulk and package workflows. goRoam handles all expected mobile delivery needs like electronic signature, mobile receipt printing, emailing delivery receipts, capturing pictures, etc. More importantly, goRoam provides capabilities such as: 

  • Compartment validation to address product integrity
  • LCR meter control
  • PFD (pump from drum)
  • Package-to-bulk conversion for drum delivery
  • Stick readings
  • Tank forecasting
  • Turn-by-turn navigation with commercial vehicle routing
  • KPI reporting with bulk metrics
  • GPS tracking 

 … and many more lubes specific features 

You need a mobile app built specifically for fuels and lubes distributors. If you don’t have a routing solution, we can help there, too. 

If you haven’t seen Ortec’s presentation on advanced routing, please reach out to us for a demo. BizSpeed powers the Ortec.Mobile solution for bulk products. Ortec is a 10+ year BizSpeed partner, and Ortec excels in larger fleet implementations. 

What You Should Know about Multi-Compartment Routing

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Data-Driven Logistics

Multi-compartment route optimization can save 20% of your total transportation costs by creating smarter routes and using more of your trucks’ capacity.

If you deliver bulk products and have more than 10 trucks/depot and don’t use multi-vehicle/multi-compartment routing, you’re missing opportunities to improve operational efficiency and customer service.

Multi-compartment routing allows you to define capabilities and a compatibility matrix so the optimization software can build the lowest cost routes, use the least amount of trucks and still meet customer delivery constraints like service hours.

There’s a lot wrapped up in this statement, so let’s outline what the optimization process does and how you use a multi-compartment routing solution.  Our solution differentiates itself in multi-compartment routing, especially with products like lubricants where combo trucks have a variable number of compartments.  There are 3 keys to our multi-compartment routing solution:

  • Compatibility matrix
  • Capabilities and calendars (service windows)
  • Route optimization

Step 1 – Compatibility Matrix

The first step of the configuration is to set up trucks and trailers with compartments and compatibilities.   For example, a tank-wagon may have 4 fixed compartments plus 2 slots for pallets.  Or a combo truck may have 10 slots that are all variable, where slot 1 can contain a pallet today and a bulk tote tomorrow.

For each compartment, you define the allowed products (compatibility matrix), filling requirements, volume and total weight.  These will be factored in to prevent over-filling as well as being over-weight.

Our solution has service capabilities per compartment, along with filling requirements.  An empty clear diesel compartment can take dyed diesel, or a 0W20 can take a different lubricant if the compartment is washed. This applies to all bulk products, so you can have the same filling compatibility whether you are filling organic milk on top of regular milk, 0W20 on top of 5W20, or 8% bleach on top of a 12% bleach.

The optimizer understands variable compartment layouts where slot 1 contains a 500 gal tote today but tomorrow contains a 330 gal tote.  The compatibility matrix is a key part of the setup.

Step 2 – Capabilities and Calendars

In the optimizer, you can define capabilities on any resource, including trucks, trailers, drivers, customers, etc.   A capability is a user defined feature such as “metered vehicle” or “high speed pump”, so you can match truck capabilities with customer or product capabilities.  For example, you can state that bulk lubricants require the capability “meter,” so only metered vehicles with valid compartments are considered for bulk lubes orders.  Or you can state customer 123 only has the capability for “short trucks” so you don’t route full trailers that may not fit. 

A capability can also be assigned to a driver, such as “mine safety certification,” so only drivers with that capability will be routed on orders that have customers meeting the same capability.

Capabilities are most often assigned to trucks/trailers.  If you have a specific piece of equipment it will only be matched to orders that have that same capability.

In addition to capabilities, you can assign calendars to resources, just like you assign capabilities. The most common resource calendar is customer service hours.  You can establish multiple service hours per day so the routing engine will determine if you can meet that calendar, such as only deliver between 8am-10am and 1pm-4pm so you don’t block dock bays during peak windows.

Additionally, you can add one-time calendars such as Thanksgiving or Christmas where customers are closed or have limited service times.

The optimizer considers both capabilities and calendars, with the option to highlight when a route can still be considered but may have a “soft constraint.”  This comes into play when a customer may close at 5pm but the optimizer shows you would complete the order at 5.10pm, or when orders on a truck total 1010 gals and the compartment holds 1000. The dispatcher can still accept the route after acknowledging the violation of this constraint.

Step 3 – Route Optimization

Optimization is the process of automatically building routes (trips).  The optimizer assigns resources (drivers, trucks, trailers) and stops (orders, loads) to create the lowest total transportation cost to service all orders.  The optimizer considers compatibility matrices, capacities, constraints and calendars to ensure the most efficient routes are built and comply with your business rules.

The simplest example is a depot that has 10 trucks and 100 orders.  The optimizer will automatically build routes and may determine you only need 8.5 trucks.

Many customers worry that “all the knowledge is in my dispatcher’s head” and you can’t automate that – my dispatchers know the geography and the customers. 

Dispatchers’ territory and customer knowledge is important, but how do you know they’ve done a good job?  How do you know how many miles they should drive, how long it should take and that you’ve used your assets most efficiently?    Without a planning tool, you don’t know.  And without a mobile solution, you don’t know driver actuals or route compliance.  Without delivery metrics, you miss key data to measure logistics efficiency.

Moving from paper and older dispatch systems to a multi-vehicle, multi-compartment optimization allows you to centralize dispatch and establish a foundation for “Data-Driven Logistics.” Route optimization allows you to take the knowledge from your dispatchers’ heads and formalize it in software to get efficiencies of scale and provide tools to make dispatchers more efficient.

The optimizer provides the plan while the goRoam mobile app provides the actuals and up to the minute delivery status.  goRoam enforces route compliance and can be configured to require a 1-time PIN code from the dispatcher for the driver to go out of sequence.  goRoam is specifically built for bulk and package workflows, and includes capabilities such as barcode scanning of tanks, bulk inventory tracking, signature capture, mobile printing and compartment validation.

Our multi-compartment, multi-vehicle routing solution, along with the goRoam mobile app, provides the most advanced optimization and mobile solution specifically built for bulk logistics.  Together we provide the platform for your “Data-Driven Logistics.”

If you want a detailed analysis of how multi-compartment routing applies to your logistics, just click here…

How to find money using mobile logistics apps

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Going from paper delivery tickets to mobile is “found money”

Most companies using paper delivery tickets have grown to accept them, but in reality, switching to a mobile app is equivalent to the move that retailers made decades ago when they replaced “price stickers” with barcodes and installed registers with integrated barcode scanners to read them.

While no one questions the need for a cash register and scanners in retail, many bulk distributors are still perfectly content giving a driver $10k in bulk products and asking them to “write down what you delivered so we can bill it.”

Mobile logistics systems are an investment just like cash registers are for retail stores, and like cash registers, mobile logistics systems enforce standard processes and provide visibility into key delivery metrics.

5 ways money can be reclaimed by going mobile

  • Invoice processing – On average, it costs $12.90-$15 to process a manual invoice with the highest cost going up to $40. Automated invoicing lowers that cost to $3.50/invoice. That amounts to a savings of roughly $360/ week in invoice processing if a driver is writing 6 invoices daily.  Going mobile saves manual processing time because you no longer have to process and re-key paper invoices.
  • Route compliance – When given paper, drivers complete orders in any sequence and there is no visibility into time to service, start times, end times, order sequence, order status, etc. With a mobile app, drivers are given a planned schedule with time and distance. With this increased level of visibility, you automatically get higher compliance which can be a 5-15% reduction in total transportation costs.  A conservative savings estimate is 30+ mins/trip and 10 miles/trip amounting to $75/week in labor and $50/week in loaded mileage ($2/mile) for a total of $120/week.daily.  Going mobile saves manual processing time because you no longer have to process and re-key paper invoices.
  • Shorten Order to Cash (OTC) – By going from paper to electronic invoicing, you skip all the manual processing and can shorten the number of days to invoice by 7-10. Some ExxonMobil customers have been able to invoice buyback accounts the next day versus the average of 21 days (20 day savings).  Shortening the OTC process impacts Days Sales outstanding (DSO).  DSO is the average length of time invoices remain unpaid. If you have access to an investment that returns 5% and have a $2M average receivables balance, you would save $100k/year by reducing your DSO 10 days.  Apruve talks a lot about DSO if you’d like more information.
  • Inventory control – The quantities of materials loaded onto trucks can be tracked against what is delivered to customers so you always know the inventory level on a truck. If the quantity retained at the end of the trip does not match customer deliveries, the driver must account for that discrepancy. Mobile apps can’t necessarily prevent theft, but they can certainly monitor it, inform you of any misappropriation, and discourage the act—similar to a security camera watching a cash register. Better inventory control could easily prevent theft of up to $100k/year from one driver alone. Tracking hose flushes and load vs. delivered variances, as well as verifying tanks to prevent over delivery can conservatively identify variances of 5 gal/day. At $10/gal, that is $300/week. Without mobile technology, who knows how much you are actually losing. *
  • Product integrity – By scanning a barcode on each tank delivery, drivers ensure the product they are pumping matches the tank and the last product delivered, which guards against product integrity issues whether you face product integrity issues weekly or quarterly. With only 1 issue/year/truck you would save $5k/incident alone from remediation cost savings, assuming there are no legal costs related to the customer discovering this problem.  See how our mobile app reduces product integrity issues.

There are many softer benefits to going mobile. The ability to email a delivery receipt means customers perceive more professionalism and accuracy, and don’t have to worry about discrepancies between the paper ticket they signed and what the billing clerk enters on the invoice. 

Here are some other benefits, beyond cash savings, that increase customer focus and provide operational visibility:

  • emailed proof of delivery receipts
  • real-time truck location and inventory reporting
  • customer notification of pending deliveries
  • add/change orders on an active route

Conclusion

Going mobile should be an intuitive decision. With just a few days for relatively simple set-up, the results can be a 10x cost-savings versus paperless delivery and routing. Accelerating the Order To Cash (OTC) process, avoiding re-keying mistakes, reducing contaminated deliveries with barcode verification, building a tank database to forecast orders, and having visibility into your delivery metrics lays the groundwork for data-driven logistics.

For a typical fuels and lubricants distributor, the conservative business case can be pretty compelling.  Using the data above, a 10-truck operation could save more than $500k/year.

Area

Annual Savings

Notes

Invoice Processing

$17,280

6 invoices/day/truck

Route Compliance

$5,760

30 mins & 10 miles/trip

Inventory Control

$14,400

5 gal/day @ $10/gal

Product Integrity

$5,000

prevent 1 issue/yr/truck

Shorten OTC

$100,000

applied across ALL trucks

TOTAL – 10 trucks

$524,400

 

Our goRoam mobile app for bulk distributors can help you find money that is hidden in your logistics system whether you have an existing legacy mobile app or are still using paper. Interested in knowing more? Contact us to have someone walk you through what this would look like for your company.

*When inventory control feature is used with our electronic meter integration or our truck scale integration, we further restrict drivers’ ability to manipulate inventory.  And you can see any time a driver manually enters or changes a value.

Bulk Distributor Maturity Model for Logistics

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Is your company caught in a “fail to scale” scenario?  Bulk distributors that have grown through brute force must adopt technology to realize the potential capacity of existing assets. Automation strategies create new opportunities to reduce the number of delivery vehicles, total mileage and increase gallons delivered when adding another truck no longer does the trick.

Key metrics that indicate success are hard to evaluate if you don’t have a system geared toward optimization and insight. Keep reading to understand how technology investments are not just another expense.

The addition of new trucks can represent more delivery capacity, but if you have some untapped delivery capacity in your existing fleet, would it make sense to avoid buying more trucks by investing in automation technology?  Similarly, new order entry clerks can add additional back-office capacity, but if you are just re-keying and duplicating work, would it make sense to automate your delivery workflows and integrate directly to your back office?

We’ve highlighted ways companies use technology to measure and manage their operations. In response to the idea that “You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, we’ve developed a maturity model for logistics maturity and what you need to get to the next level. 

As companies invest in technology, they move from left to the right, from paper-based manual dispatching to fully-integrated companies that optimize routing, forecasting, and inventory.

Level 1 – Paper

Level 1 companies have paper-based dispatch with little or no software automation.  Historically, everyone had to use paper.  Most companies do not have sufficient systems in place to measure logistics efficiencies such as gal/hour or gal/trip since everything is paper-based.  Level 1 does not necessarily mean you are highly inefficient or have poor customer service, but it does mean there are no processes and systems in place to deliver consistently and efficiently.    

Level 1 typically views success as  “Let’s make sure we make all of our deliveries…do not worry about overtime or whether we have too many trucks, just make sure everything is delivered.” 

Many companies are reluctant to take the first step beyond Level 1 to begin implementing systems for dispatch because of a perceived risk to customer service and an inability to see beyond the expense. If you don’t have systems to capture and analyze data, you can’t grow your business and operate efficiently or predictably as your larger competitors do.

Level 2 –  Basic Automation

At Level 2, logistics functions eliminate paper and allow information to be shared, and laying the foundation to measure efficiency. Since drivers use a mobile device, you know how long each trip takes so you can get bulk metrics reports like gal/hour, gal/trip and gal/mile.

The smartphone delivery app turns your truck into a virtual cash register that enforces a consistent set of delivery rules. Each barcoded tank lets you know the delivered quantity over time as well as that tank’s capacity and GPS location. It maintains product integrity by alerting/preventing the driver from delivering the wrong product to that tank.

Level 3 – Integration

Level 3 companies focus on moving from reaction-based logistics to resource planning.  They optimize routes to determine how long a trip should take and measure performance with “plan-vs-actual” reports.

Example: The driver took 10 hours and drove 350 miles but should have taken 8 hours and 275 miles.  At $25/hr and $2/mile, your plan saved $50+ in overtime and $150 in loaded mileage.  You can see if the route ran out of sequence so you can take corrective action. Integration with your ERP means you are not re-keying orders, so the Order-To-Cash (OTC) cycle is shorter, and customer service is improved. 

Level 4 – Visibility

Level 4 companies focus on using data to make decisions and have moved from simple route planning to optimize operations. Centralized dispatch is possible, which standardizes processes to ensure efficient and standardized delivery across ALL depots.

Many companies think site-based dispatch is more agile because their dispatchers “know the customers and territory,” but what happens when your dispatcher is sick or leaves the company?

The reality is decentralized dispatching reinforces inefficiencies. Level 4 companies use data to make better business decisions and have processes in place to ensure they can scale.  They don’t have to worry a single dispatcher will make or break their operations and quality of service.

Level 5 – Optimization

Industry-leading companies with Level 5 integration use automation to achieve higher profitability, higher customer satisfaction, and lower waste.  Now that all of your tanks are barcoded, you forecast orders for unmonitored tanks using Machine Learning. Instead of topping off keep-full accounts, you schedule deliveries based on when the tank needs to be filled, resulting in larger drop sizes and increasing your average gal/delivery.  Instead of delivering 1x/week, you deliver 2x every three weeks and use the extra capacity on the truck to service more customers.

Level 5 includes multi-vehicle, multi-compartment optimization. The software routing engine optimizes orders across vehicles to ensures optimization for the lowest total transportation cost while still meeting customer service windows. 

Example: The routing engine will take ten trucks with 100 orders and assign orders to trips, so the net result is meeting all customer service windows but only using 8.5 trucks.   Optimization gives you extra capacity that equals an extra truck and driver.

Multi-vehicle, multi-compartment route optimization tends to be used in companies with more than 50 trucks.  There are a few companies that advertise multi-compartment routing, but in our real-world experience, there are only a couple that achieves it.  Dynamic, multi-compartment routing requires a high level of sophistication and commitment.  Multi-vehicle, multi-compartment routing has proven to save an additional 10-25% of your total transportation costs depending on the density of your delivery area and the number of stops per day per truck.

“What gets measured gets managed” is our first article in a series to help companies understand their logistics maturity and find tools to measure and grow their business.  Future articles will cover the steps needed to move from Level 1 to Level 5.  We will share why companies decide to invest in technology and the benefits your company can expect as it moves through the maturity model. If you have questions or would like to learn more, please contact us.

Forecast tanks without monitors using AI and ML

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Just because a tank doesn’t have a tank monitor doesn’t mean you can’t forecast the level, days to safety stock and days to empty. 

You simply cannot optimize logistics without accurate order forecasts.

The image shows a typical keep full account with the blue line as the delivered quantity.

We often hear customers say 80% of their bulk tanks are not monitored and therefore not forecast.  Inaccurate or missing forecasts have a significant impacts on transportation and logistics costs, because you: 

  • Over serve customers – you deliver more often than you should
  • Retain too much product – avg 10-20% returned to the depot
  • Only use 80% of your vehicle capacity
  • Run less efficient routes

When drivers deliver with the goRoam mobile app, all tanks get a barcode and all tanks have a tank profile created, so you know the tank capacity, max fill level, safety stock, etc.  All subsequent deliveries are tied to individual tanks, so you know exact delivery quantity and timing.

This data is used by our Insight module, which uses statistical consumption modeling that we have developed to analyze delivery history, related tanks, monitored tanks and related products to generate a forecast.  The benefit of the Insight module is the ability to use AI and ML (Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) to detect relationships that simple statistics like averages cannot detect. With Insight, your dispatchers have tools and data to optimize logistics and make smarter decisions, including:

  • When should I service this customer? Instead of a keep-full account that goes 2x per week, they may determine they can go 3x every 2 weeks.  At $125/per stop, this saves one stop.
  • How much product should I plan for the order, assuming the same keep-full schedule? Most of our customers want to change the schedule and fill when needed, but if you keep the same schedule, you may have 30% additional capacity on your truck.  We often see keep-full tanks that are filled at 50% of the order volume, so even keeping a buffer above the forecast volume still frees significant truck capacity.
  • Are there any keep-full tanks that I could top off to use 100% of my truck capacity? This is a trade off in transportation costs, but now that you have another 20-30% of available capacity on your truck and the driver is already on the road, you can determine if there are other tanks that you can top off.
  • Can I revise the order quantity based on the forecast so I DON’T have as much retained product (if I always top-off my slow-moving tanks at the same customer location)?

Forecasting all tanks has a direct impact on the bulk delivery KPI’s.  You should see an immediate impact in the following.  When looking at gal/trip and gal/hr, you should be tracking delivered gallons, not loaded gallons. 

  • Gal/stop
  • Gal/trip
  • Gal/Hr
  • Gal retained

And what about tanks that have infrequent fills, such as once a quarter, and our ability to forecast the?  The more frequent the delivery, the more accurate the forecast and the better ability to capture trends or seasonality.  There is still an opportunity in infrequent fills. If you deliver 700 gals on Jan 1, April 1, July 1, etc.  you can now call the customer on Mar 15 and say “We have a truck in the area and we think you need xxx gallons. Would you like to place an order?” 

The key to forecasting is data, and the key to data is capturing it at the point of delivery. The goRoam mobile app and MobileHub Insights module help you make smarter decisions.

You simply cannot optimize logistics without accurate order forecasts.

Contact us to learn more or set up a demo of our Insight module!

goRoam for fuels and goRoam for lubricants and chemicals

 

Bulk distributors – what you’re missing with old technology

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“You can’t use typewriters forever.”

We get it. You’ve always done business this way.  You have great drivers and dispatchers.  You make all of your deliveries, and your drivers seldom make mistakes.  Your customers are happy.  Margins are good, and you’re making money.

But how long will it last when your competitors are moving to mobile apps to increase driver efficiency and reduce contamination risks?

The reality is several factors are driving your competitors to change.

  • Industry consolidation
  • Driver shortages
  • More exotic products

Industry consolidation

Private equity is fueling industry consolidation. Companies facing acquisition opportunities don’t get the best deal if they are still using a paper-based workflows and manual routing. When rolling up smaller distributors, private equity firms have specific objectives to drive their ROI, which drives acquisition price:

  • Get efficiencies of scale
  • Operate as one company – not 25 small companies

To get efficiencies of scale, successful companies implement technology to drive efficiencies.  Specifically, they invest in route optimization, mobile delivery apps, tank forecasting, and data analytics to drive their business.  While it used to be “okay” to use paper or static routes, or dispatch from each office, rollups are centralizing dispatch and using technology to get efficiencies of scale.

Where you used to have competitors that did business the same way with paper and static routes, you now have ones who optimize routes, email customers when their delivery is scheduled, provide an immediate email receipt on delivery and a customer portal to view order history.  They know how much it costs to serve a customer, and they grow without adding more trucks and trailers.

Routing technology enables centralized dispatch and knowing “planned times and distance.”  Mobile technology provides real-time updates and captures “actual delivery metrics.” Routing and mobile together provide the foundation to understand the cost to serve and to drive efficiency by managing “plan vs actual”. The paper-based alternative is to pass driver management responsibilities to your customers.

Driver shortages 

All distributors are dealing with driver shortages.  You have to adopt technology to make the drivers as productive as possible, but there is a secondary reason that is just as important. With the current shortage of drivers, you’re forced to choose among less experienced drivers, so you are rolling the dice without the right technology.   Mobile apps enforce workflows and ensure drivers follow the correct steps.  

Even with experienced drivers, a mobile app that performs specific workflow checks is crucial and improves efficiency.  For bulk product delivery, a mobile app that scans tank and compartment barcodes will confirm the product and prevent a contamination incident.  If a driver puts 15W40 in a 0W20 tank, or 8% sodium hypochlorite in a 12% tank, they won’t know until the customer uses the product.  

The worst scenario is not the cross-fills you find, but the ones you miss.

A mobile delivery app is the basis for driver efficiency.  It provides real-time status updates to dispatchers and workflow efficiencies for drivers. Instead of handwriting meter values and using a calculator to determine what is delivered, the mobile app can read the meter directly.  Data that you used to write on paper like stick readings now becomes actionable data to forecast tanks.  With the goRoam mobile app, there is no paperwork as the data is captured on an Android or iOS device and transmitted electronically for billing – no more waiting on paperwork and no more re-keying.  And the mobile app can enforce route compliance by requiring a PIN code for drivers to make deliveries out of sequence.  

More exotic products = greater contamination risks

With more exotic products such as super low viscosity oils, the cost of making a delivery mistake is much higher.  Distributors such as ExxonMobil and Shell have a heightened focus on their Quality Assurance programs. 

If you don’t have a mobile app like goRoam to help drive workflow, it is simply a matter of time before you have a serious contamination issue.

Summary

Industry consolidation, driver shortages, and more exotic products are three reasons why you need to invest in technology right now.  We understand you have always done business the same way, and you’re making money, but these factors are going to force you to adopt or lose business.  

If you are a rollup operating as a independent companies, you have to adopt technology to get efficiencies of scale and operate as one.  

The good news is, now it’s easier than ever to get started with our cloud server and fully managed mobile solutions.   Contact us to get started! 

 

3-way Match to Eliminate Product Integrity Issues

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As a bulk distributor, product integrity matters.  It may not occur frequently, but when contamination does happen, there can be a high cost in remediation, especially if the driver or customer does not catch it at the time of delivery.

What tools do you give your drivers to ensure they don’t cross-fill and contaminate a customer tank/asset?

Whether you distribute bleach, gases, fuels or lubricants, manufacturers such as ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron have increased their focus on product integrity and are looking at distributors to ensure you have tools and processes in place to avoid contamination.   

We’ve worked with key manufacturers to develop a 3-way match between the compartment, product, and tank that ensures product integrity.  You can enable 3-way matching at the truck/trailer level or enforce it on ALL of your trucks. 

3-way matching using the goRoam mobile app

3-way matching is done in goRoam with a load sheet that contains 2D barcodes that are unique for that truck and compartment for each day.  As you can see in the image above the product and quantity are loaded and recorded by compartment during the load with a barcode scan.

The load sheet allows you to support compartment validation using totes or on trucks with compartments that vary by day.

At the time of delivery, the driver selects the product they are delivering and scans the compartment barcode.   When the driver fills assets, they scan each asset like a normal fill and the goRoam app confirms the compartment – tank compatibility.  If the tank is not configured for that product, the driver is alerted. If the truck uses our electronic meter configuration, the solenoid remains closed and the driver cannot physically pump any product.

The goRoam app has extensive auditing so you can see each time a driver attempted to fill an asset with the wrong product.  Even without 3-way matching, we still confirm product compatibility so you cannot put gas in a diesel tank, ATF in a lubes tank or bleach in an acid tank.

To learn more about 3-way matching, use the contact form or call us!

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