When a current operational process involves hours and can be replaced by a process that takes minutes, then modify is excellent. Valley Oil of Hopewell, N.J., identified a number of core operational procedures that burdened management, office employees and field personnel. They then researched numerous solutions that would aid them reduce the time burden on these positions. Inside the end, they chose an integrated resolution that incorporated replacing their back-end customer accounting software, upgrading to electronic meter registers on their fuel delivery trucks and deploying a wireless data communication technique that linked the office and also the field. Randy Jaeger, operations manager at Valley Oil, admitted that they have been a little bit intimidated by the prospect of taking on so much adjust at a single time. But, in Jaeger’s words, “the transition went smoother than we anticipated and also the outcomes exceeded our expectations. This is a feature-rich resolution that provides more than we could have hoped. Posting the preceding day’s function and preparing the next day’s route utilised to need a full-time assistant and take 3 to four hours of my time everyday. We were capable to eliminate the want for an assistant and now I can get the same function accomplished in much less than 30 minutes.
The savings to the company are significant and can be measured in saved time and saved dollars.”
Among other factors, attributes of Valley Oil’s integrated method involve: • Complete client accounting and record-keeping • Flexible and robust report creating • Comprehensive delivery and service scheduling • Electronic route creating working with sort criteria like degree day, date, driver, truck, zone, item and much more • Mapping and route optimization tools • Real-time car and inventory tracking • Real-time status and productivity reporting • Voiceless digital dispatching • Wireless data capture • Electronic batch posting • Field invoicing and printing • Multi-product calibrations
The system enables Jaeger to monitor the progress of drivers throughout the course on the day and makes reassigning function from one particular driver to yet another a breeze. The occasional same-day emergency order can be dispatched with just some clicks of a mouse.
“The selection to go with this method has radically changed, for the excellent, the way our dispatching operation gets the job performed,” mentioned Jaeger. “I am extremely happy we created this move.” Efficiency gains are accomplished through the complete cycle with the delivery work order, from the time the “ticket” is developed in the buyer accounting application, via the delivery method and till the completed delivery is posted to the customer’s record.
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When asked about any drawbacks for the method, Jaeger stated, “you need to be realistic when deploying a solution constructed about wireless technologies. You'll have occasional ‘dropped calls,’ but the system has sensible, built-in security nets; you in no way lose information. Occasionally, you need to recapture or enter data manually, but that is certainly a minor concern compared to the enormous advantages on the technique as a whole.”
When asked concerning the support in the vendors who offered the components in the integrated technique, Randy’s comment was “we don’t want our close competitors to have this technologies; it gives us a competitive edge, so if you do not compete with us, we very advise them.”
Fortunately for Valley Oil, ownership, management, workplace employees and field staff have all embraced the adjust, and with all the exception with the particular person whose position was eliminated, all are benefiting from the transform.
Jon Brost, service manager at Valley Oil, has been an interested observer of your transition to this technologies from across the area. Brost saw the phenomenal improvement in the efficiency of the fuel-delivery operation over a matter of a few quick months. Brost now wants exactly the same technology for his service department.
Fortunately for Brost, exactly the same central vendor that orchestrated the integration with the fuel-delivery answer for Valley Oil provides a comparable resolution for the service department. Valley Oil is looking forward to deploying this technology in its service division this summer season. There's no doubt that this deployment will transform the way service gets dispatched and managed at Valley Oil, but Valley has discovered that “Change is very good!”