Just because a tank doesn’t have a tank monitor doesn’t mean you can’t forecast the tank level, estimate days to safety stock, and determine days to empty.
You simply cannot optimize logistics without accurate order forecasts.
We often hear customers say 80% of their bulk tanks are not monitored and therefore, not forecast. Inaccurate or missing forecasts have a significant impact on transportation and logistics costs due to various factors:
- Over Serving Customers – you deliver more often than you should
- Retaining an Excessive Amount of Product – average return rate of 10-20% to the depot
- Only using 80% of your vehicle capacity
- Running less efficient delivery routes
When drivers deliver with the goRoam mobile app, each tank receives a barcode and has a profile created. This process ensures you know the tank capacity, maximum fill level, safety stock, and other relevant details. All subsequent deliveries are linked to individual tanks, so you know the exact delivery quantity and timing.
Benefits of Using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to Monitor Tanks
The data is used by our Insight Module, which uses statistical consumption modeling that we have developed. This module analyzes delivery history, associated tanks, monitored tanks and related products to generate a forecast. The benefit of the Insight Module is the ability to leverage Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to detect relationships that simple statistics, such as averages, cannot uncover. With Insight, your dispatchers gain access to tools and data that enable them to optimize logistics and make smarter decisions, including:
- When should I schedule service this customer? Instead of a keep-full account that is serviced 2x per week, they might find that going 3x every 2 weeks is sufficient. This adjustment saves one service stop, which costs $125.
- How much product should I plan for the order? Assuming the same keep-full schedule? While most of our customers prefer to change their schedule and fill when needed, keeping the same schedule may result in 30% additional capacity on your truck. It is common to see keep-full tanks that are only filled at 50% of the order volume, so even with a buffer above the forecast volume, significant truck capacity is still available.
- 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 an additional 20-30% of available capacity on your truck when the driver is already on the road, you can assess if there are other tanks that can be topped off.
- Can I adjust the order quantity based on the forecast so I DON’T have as much retained product (especially if I always top-off my slow-moving tanks at the same customer location)?
Significance of Tank-Level Forecasting on Bulk Delivery KPIs
Forecasting all tanks has a direct impact on the bulk delivery KPI’s. You should see an immediate impact in the following:
- Gallons per stop
- Gallons per trip
- Gallons per hour
- Gallons retained
When looking at gal/trip and gal/hr, you should be tracking delivered gallons, not loaded gallons.
And what about tanks that have infrequent fills, such as once a quarter, and our ability to forecast these? 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 tank 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.
goRoam for fuels and goRoam for lubricants and chemicals