Bulk Deliveries & Forecasting

The Challenge

It is time consuming and error prone to manually record bulk deliveries on paper and later key this data into the business system for billing.

It can be challenging to schedule bulk deliveries while ensuring that customers do not run out of bulk product.

The Solution

The TrackAbout Bulk Delivery and Forecasting Module is used to track deliveries of bulk products (liquid CO2, liquid oxygen, etc) into tanks at customer sites.

Printed delivery confirmation can be given to customers on the spot.

This delivery data can be integrated back into business systems for billing.

Forecasting is provided to predict when customers will need to be resupplied.

How it Works

Setup Asset Types as Bulk Tanks

Once this module is turned on by TrackAbout Support you should see a couple of new options for Asset Types. You can find this in the TrackAbout Config > Asset Classifications page.

"Is Bulk Tank" set this to Yes for your bulk tank assets
"Item Number for Bulk Fills". This is used for any integration or printing of receipts. In the example below this is a CO2 tank and so an item number of "CO2-LB" is used to indicate one pound of CO2 delivered to fill this tank.

Mobile Data Collection: Tank Initialization

First bulk tanks must be setup as assets in TrackAbout. They have some special properties and so require a special Add New action to initialize these bulk tank assets.

Once the Asset Type is set to "Is Bulk Tank = Yes" then the Add New process on the handheld will automatically ask for the extra info needed for bulk tanks.

This data is collected during the initial setup of a bulk tank in TrackAbout.

Item# (The part number of the tank)
Owner of tank
Barcode Number
Serial Number
Customer Number (Where the tank in installed)
Total Capacity/Volume
Install Date

Note: Before doing a Bulk Delivery to a newly added bulk tank:

The handheld that added the bulk tank must be synced to tell the site that the bulk tank is now at a customer.
Then the handheld that will do the Bulk Delivery must be synced to pull down the list of bulk tanks.
For a handheld to pull down the bulk tank info the bulk tank must:
- Have an Asset Type that is set to to "Is Bulk Tank = Yes"
- Have a maximum capacity set
- Be on the balance of a customer

Mobile Data Collection: Bulk Delivery

This data is collected during the filling of a bulk tank

Timestamp
Person logged into handheld
Tank barcode number or serial number. (This is used to determine the customer number)
Weight or volume of bulk gas delivered
Optional checkbox to exclude this fill from normal usage calculations – It was leaking, I didn’t fill it all the way, etc
Signature
Signer’s Name

This is not shown above, but it is possible to also enter an order number. In the example below the TrackAbout handheld is creating the order number during the delivery.

This is also not shown above, but it is possible to deliver more items than just the bulk product. For instance barcoded cylinders may also be delivered on the same order along with the bulk product.

Mobile Printing

During the delivery process the user can print a delivery confirmation. Today this is done on a 4 inch wide rugged mobile printer connected to the handheld via Bluetooth wireless technology, but this could be done on other printers as well.

The printout looks like the example below. The logo at the top of this receipt is editable as are the text at the top and bottom of the document.

Delivery Forecasting

This feature predicts when bulk tanks will need to be filled based on historical usage patterns.

The only forecasting model supported today is a weighted average of the most recent 5 filling cycles. Each customer can be assigned to a different forecasting model.

A forecast report allows users to view bulk tanks with planned delivery dates in the near future.

Multiple tanks with one customer

For forecasts, multiple tanks on a single customer number will be treated like one big tank. So for example if a customer had 2 tanks with a capacity of 300 lbs each, the forecast would act as if the customer had a single tank of 600 lb capacity.

Configuration

Below is an image of the forcasting configurations. These configurations are only viewable and editable by TrackAbout support. Contact TrackAbout Support to view or alter your settings.

Integration

The data collected during deliveries can be integrated back into an existing business system. There are a variety of technical mechanisms available for this integration. Please contact TrackAbout for more information on integration options.

Note to TrackAbout support: Check for setup info here.