After the global recession, the economy is steadily recovering. So, improving the supply chain efficiency to maintain profits and spirit during the good and bad economic times has become the focal point for all businesses. The expanding markets, multiplying suppliers, and inflating consumers has changed the scenario from tip to toe. The margins are shrinking, and competition is growing. There is an increase in the exigency to slick operations and curtail costs.
The companies dealing with gas supply business acknowledge the essentiality of retrenching cost, ameliorating service and efficiency and accelerating return on investments from one pole of the supply chain to the other. The gas suppliers invest a huge sum of money in cylinders that remain the main supply asset for delivering gas. These cylinders need to be fully utilized, maintained and tracked. The loss and theft of these tankers are expensive and troublesome.
In the complex environment, asset tracking solutions have become important to track the tankers throughout their lifecycle. Below are some reasons why gas suppliers need tracking solutions.
Inventory accuracy with a goodbye to labor
The optimization of an expansive supply chain tends to take up a lot of time. This is because the company follows manual procedures; the data acquired remains prone to errors due to the human inefficiency and costs ample of money. To eradicate these issues out of the businesses, the gas suppliers depend on asset tracking system that utilizes RFID technology to its full depth.
Machine-to-machine data acquisition uploads all the information automatically without the need for much human intervention. The data status remains up-to–date within lesser time. According to a survey, RFID raises inventory accuracy from an average of 63% to 95%. Moreover, the inventory labor productivity improves by 96%.
Visibility, tracking status and verification
Today, the gas supply organization is fully aware that the visibility of asset, inventory and shipment has become critical. RFID tracking system provides an automated way of knowing what the gas suppliers own and where it is in the rotation process. Unlike barcodes, RFID does not require a direct line of sight to be read and can read many tags simultaneously at once.
A tracking solution such as Trakaid’s CyTrack provides end-to-end visibility. It gives real-time tracking status and allows verification of the history and location of the cylinders. Such a visibility based on RFID reading can give the gas supply companies a better analysis of when inventory problems are likely to occur so that prior actions to resolve them are undertaken seriously.
The gathered information makes the suppliers view the sleeping and lost cylinders, eliminating buying of new cylinders and recognizing the spots for recovery of the cylinders. They can share the tracking information with their distributors to provide value added services, for example- internal tracking.
Depending on technology for customers’ sustainability
Customers’ sustainability remains at stake if the gas is not rearranged at the right time. Maintaining the process of monitoring gas available in tanks requires constant training and review. Ultimately, emergency calls for a gas delivery result in a hustle-bustle in the gas company. The delivery of the gas consumes time and non-availability of gas harm the revenue.
The gas suppliers require a smooth sailing process for the delivery of gases. To provide hassle free services to the customers, cylinder suppliers depend on technology. Gas monitoring equipment such as Trakaid’s LgMonitor removes out-of-stock issues with gas supplies via latest sensing and telemetry technology to sense and measure average daily consumption and transfer information to a remote location.
In this way, the gas suppliers can plan for a delivery and arrange for the gas. As a result, with a gas monitoring system, the deliveries will be scheduled and the possibility of emergency requests at odd timings will end.
Fitter cylinders, stronger associations
Due to the lack of specifications, it becomes bothersome for the gas supply company to identify the cylinder that must go for testing. Because of this, the damaged cylinders at times are used for the supply of gases, evoking dangers at all levels in the process. As a result, the gas supply companies face the loss of bonds with the distributors, partners and customers.
Unlike barcodes, tracking devices such as RFID provides full specification on the cylinder tags. The date of testing is mentioned on the RFID tag that makes the gas suppliers aware of its testing needs. Due to this, only the fittest cylinders are used for supplying gas, making the association strongest.
You can also growth hack your gas supply business by using Trakaid’s CyTrack and LgMonitor.