CASE STUDY

FUEL MONITOR REPORT

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PETROLEUM INDUSTRY

PROBLEMS & ISSUES:

In the downstream distribution of petroleum products, land transportation plays a vital role in transporting the petroleum product from terminals to the Petroleum retail outlets. They impose a great deal of challenge and it’s a night mare to plan for milk run. Besides these safety involved in transportation of highly explosive cargo poses even greater challenge.

So, there were numerous concerns and they have been enlisted below:

Know where the Petroleum Tanker is
Safety of Driver
Safety of Cargo
Timely delivery
Fleet Maintenance
Reduction of Paper work
Commitment on a realistic time for Delivery
Trips/ Milk run completed for a day by a petroleum tanker
Dispatch based on real time location information
Pilferage
Alarming the Control room during exceptions
Operation Costs

COMPONENTS OF OUR SOLUTION:

Map with Instant Rendering
Sensors integrated with the in-vehicle hardware
Web based backend Fleet Management System
In-Vehicle Hardware ( Black boxes )

IDEE’ APPROACH TO SOLUTION:

IDEE as a team chalked out a plan to help our customer to address their key issues / concerns that they had. With the vast experience of our team members in telematics space, we brought in Sensors to capture key inputs from Fuel Bar, Top Lids, Seat belt etc. In short, we addressed every concern of our customer with a solution to them.

These are tabled below for a good understand of how the concerns were addressed.

Sl.No.	Concerns / Isssues	How IDEE Resolved	Benefits to the Customer
1	Know where the Petroleum tanker is	Dynamic Staus Report with current status shown on map and also tabular format	Helped to implement JIT ( just in time delivery )

2	Safety of Driver	Driving working hours monitored on real time basis & also second by second reporting when accident occurs	Helped to implement JIT ( just in time delivery ). Save on time & money

3	Safety of Cargo	Harsh Braking Sensor, Seat Belt Sensor, Panic Button, Overspeed Alert and many more.	Helped the customer to understand driving behavior, initiate driving discipline, minimize the incidence of accidents.

4	Timely Delivery	Expected Time of Arrival using prediction algorithm and current location is tracked through FMS system	Helped in minimizing stock out situations.

5	Fleet Maintenance	Odometer Reading captured remotely and settings for engine oil change, service etc triggers alerts when the vehicle reaches the set km's	Helped in mimizing the maintenance cost by atleast 20%. Minimize wear of tyre, initiate time preventive maintenance

6	Reduction of paper work	Drivers don’t fill trip sheets, No requirement of time sheets. Everything captured through wireless	Brought in a paper less concept and reduced unncessary time, efforts required in recording of details manually. Helped to increase the productivity of the drivers.

7	Commitment on a realistic time for delivery	Real time vehicle tracking system helped user to commit a realistic time for delivery.	Helped to improve the distribution business. Rush the supplied quickly & increased the level of customer satisfaction.

8	Trips/Milk run completed for a day by a petroleum tanker	All the base stations like Petroleum terminals and Petroleum retail outlets were defined in the system to generate reports with no. of trips completed by each truck	Helped to automate the planning, initiate incentive for drivers depending on trips, helps in evaluating demand Vs. supply, helped to understand the performance & utilization of its existing fleet. Helped planning to expand the fleet size.

9	Dispatch based on Real Time Information	Quick response time to replenishment of products in retail outlets as real time information helped in diverting the stock	Helped the supervisors to plan & schedule the trips better. Drivers don’t have to report where they are every now & then as the system automatically captured the details.

10	Pilferage	The Fuel Bars, Top lids of a Petroleum tanker was fitted with sensors to detect their opening/ closure. The system captured their activities remotely.	The fuel bar report, top lid report helped in achieving this objective of knowing when, where and how long was fuel bar and top lid was open & closed. This helped my customer to minimize pilferage.

11	Alarming the control room during exceptions	Easy user configurable settings like speed, route, trip, stoppage allowed system to trigger alerts in case if exceptions occured	Alarms helped in instant understanding of violations & helped supervisors to respond fast

12	Operation Costs	Journey report with Avg. fuel consumption & cost to the company helps in assimilating the cost of operations.	This also helped to understand operations cost in details and also helped in deciding the fleet to service selected outlets.

LOGISTICS

PROBLEMS & ISSUES:

In the logistics industry, other than planning and scheduling the trips, the real time vehicle tracking allows the Operations personnel to commit the time of delivery/ pick up of goods. Now a days with the growing importance of High valued goods transported over land, their safety is of paramount importance to the logistics industry.

Hijacking
Time Window for Deliveries
Accidents
High fleet Maintenance cost
High manual efforts
Black smoke emission, overspeed and fines
Unhappy customers
Route Violations unknown

COMPONENTS OF OUR SOLUTION:

Map with Instant Rendering
All offices mapped & reflected on the map with icon
Sensors integrated with the in-vehicle hardware
Web based backend Fleet Management System
In-Vehicle Hardware ( Black boxes )
SMS modems for SMS Query & SMS alerts

IDEE’ APPROACH TO SOLUTION:

IDEE team studied the concerns of the customers in detail and addressed them in the following ways:

Sl.No.	Concerns / Isssues	How IDEE Resolved	Benefits to the Customer
1	Hijacking	We minimized the chances of hi-jacking with TWO levels of immobilization. Active immobilization at ignition sensor level and Passive immobilization at fuel tank level.	The driver just had to press the alert alarm and the control room can remotely immobilize the vehicle. Secondly the customer could define fixed routes and deviation from the route can trigger an alert.

2	Time Window For Deliveries	The operations manager could commit the delivery time for every deployment.	Minimized the dispute regarding the deliveries. Improved customer satisfaction

3	Accidents	By integrating brake sensor and monitoring incidence of overspeeding and alerting on the dash board report, operations manager was well informed.	The no. of accidents reported were very less when compared to a situation before the VTS was in place.

4	High Fleet Maintenance Cost	SMS Alert settings for engine oil change, general service etc. The VTS system also recorded the driving behaviour	The wear & tear of tyres, parts etc reduced drastically. The fleet maintenance cost decreased by 15%.

5	High Manual Efforts	The system could automatically record the Driver log in & log out. Besides no. of trips to customer sites are captured automatically	The system helped to minimize the manual efforts. No more of recording trip sheets, time sheets etc. This also helped in increasing driver productivity.

6	Black smoke emission, Overspeed and fines	The vehicle maintenance module was designed to capture odometer reading remotely without any manual intervention and provided a screen for users to key the tentative k.m’s run for alerting on engine oil change, service etc.	This helped my customer to send their fleet for timely service & overhaul because they were alerted on service dues.

7	Unhappy Customers	Provided a real time based prediction algorithm which is capable of generating ETA ( Expected Time of Arrival ) for all their vehicles. Provision for customer to log in and see the ETA for vehicles deployed for delivery to them was made available.	Reduced the no. of phone calls reaching the operations team asking about delivery status, expected vehicle arrive time etc. Decreased tension between the logistics company & their customer. Our system helped to increase the customer satisafaction

8	Trip Scheduling	The system allowed trip scheduling with provision to define the stoppage interval at every customer point. Once, the customer submitted the trip schedule to the system, the system checked on a real time basis and captured the exact time when the vehicle reached various transit points.	Helped the customer to monitor the performance of their operations. Planning Vs. Real. Get to know the deviation. Customer could log in & see the arrival time on a real time basis.

11	New jobs increased by another 10%	Since, the operations could commit a delivery time window based on the real time system. They could take new jobs which otherwise could not be taken.	This new jobs accounted for $200,000 additional revenues for the year.

12	Travel Claims	Since, the company also outsourced their job to 3PL, the system helped to log the no. k.m’ s traveled automatically.	The extra k.m’s which used to be claimed by the transporter reduced drastically as the real time tracking system also captured the exact distance traveled. They could save everyday around $320 per truck based on an average of 100 k.m distance traveled every day.

SEA TRANSPORTATION

PROBLEMS & ISSUES:

Similar to the land transportation, sea transportation requirements were also quite challenging as they need to locate from the control room located onshore on the exact location of boat/ vessel on the sea. The vessels were used for various operations like for ferrying tourist to locations earmarked for deep sea diving and resorts. There were also other types of vessels/ boats like the ones meant for bringing food supplies from feeder vessels, boats meant for fuel supply and others used for ferrying the people from one island to another. It was critical to know the exact location of the boat using GPS system so that in case of distress, with a press of a panic button, rescue team can be rushed to the place where the boat is. Besides this attacks from pirates is a day to day affair and the system helped to trigger an alert to the remote control room located on shore. The system helped to even make the electronic payment easier as the device installed on the boat support credit card reader to accept payments. Hence, those deep sea divers could remain on board of vessel and make the payment via credit card for the services that they used during their stay in the boat.

Hijacking
Real time tracking
Rushing rescue team during accidents in the sea
Fuel consumption
Real time Dispatch
Payment through credit card and wireless authorization
Violations

COMPONENTS OF OUR SOLUTION:

Sea Maps with Instant Rendering
All islands displayed on the map & boat/ vessel with icon
Sensors integrated with the in-vehicle hardware
Web based backend Real Time Boat Tracking System
In-Vehicle Hardware ( Black boxes & Mobile Communication Terminal )
SMS modems for SMS Query & SMS alerts

IDEE’ APPROACH TO SOLUTION:

IDEE team studied the concerns of the customers in detail and addressed them in the following ways:

Sl.No.	Concerns / Isssues	How IDEE Resolved	Benefits to the Customer
1	Hijacking	Pirate attacks on the high seas is a common menace. We tackled in alerting the control room onshore by providing an alert button. This button when pressed it activates a distress alarm in the remote control room.	By installing Anti-Hijack mechanism, the driver could alert the control room and then rescue team could be rushed. Besides that operators could see the exact position of boats/ vessels on the map.

2	Real Time Tracking of Vessels/ Boats	The real time tracking of boats and vessels helped to divert the boat and respond to a request within shorter time window..	Real time boat tracking system allowed to understand the position of the boat at any point of time.

3	Accidents	Since the GPS collects the position details and wirelessly posts the data to remote server. This helped to locate the vessel/ boat and rush the rescue team or even alert the boat of a bad weather	This helped the customer to minimize accidents in high seas.

4	Fuel Consumption	The customer complained about high consumption of fuel against the distance coverage. They wanted to monitor the fuel consumption.	By logging the exact nautical miles traversed with the provision to the customer to make the fuel settings allowed the customer to know the fuel consumption and also the cost to the company.

5	Real time Payment mechanism wirelessly	The dispatch unit came with a credit card reader where the credit card could be swiped against the reader and POS hand held device helped the user to insert the amount and allowed the customer to authorize payment using the password. The GPRS modem inside the unit helped to communicate remotely through wireless medium and authorize payment by establishing connection with payment gateway.	IDEE provided end to end solution for this customer right from building the payment gateway, linking with financial switch to conduct electronic transactions and installed MCT on every vessel meant for ferrying tourists who stayed on board for several days.

6	Violations	SMS alerts triggered automatically by the IDEE backend system installed at the control room on shore allowed instand warning during exceptions.	This helped to improve the response time incredibly. It brought in efficiency in their operations too.

RADIO TAXI OPERATOR

PROBLEMS & ISSUES:

The key issue in Radio Taxi operations is to pick up the customer within minimum time and drop the customer while ensuring that the customer is being informed by the expected time of taxi arrival. Conventionally, without an automatic taxi dispatch system following are the concerns and issues:

Confirming the time of Taxi arrival
Awarding job to nearest Taxi
Recording jobs taken
Taxis on road
Jobs done
Revenue
Unhappy customers
Call centre efficiency
Taxi Fleet Maintenance

COMPONENTS OF OUR SOLUTION:

Map with Instant Rendering
Dispatch Client for Call Centre Agent
IVRS & IPABX system
Mobile Communication Terminal & Taxi Meter
Web Based Taxi Dispatch System

IDEE’ APPROACH TO SOLUTION:

IDEE studied the concerns of the Taxi Operators and the challenges that they faced during their day to day operations an automated the routine functions such that employee productivity improved and reduced the no. of call centre agents to run the operations of Taxi Company. Our system helped the Taxi company to manage their fleet size of 750 Taxis with just 2 call centre agents.

Sl.No.	Concerns / Isssues	How IDEE Resolved	Benefits to the Customer
1	Confirming the arrival of a Taxi	We built in the business rules into our engine which fetched the nearest available taxi to the customer and awarded the job to the taxi and at the same time announced the ETA ( expected time of taxi arrival ) to the customer over phone using IVRS system.	The customer just easily calls a hot line no., confirms the destination and address for pick up, the customer is asked to hold the line and the system automatically dispatches the Taxi and announces the Taxi no. and arrival time to the customer holding the line.

2	Awarding job to nearest Taxi	The business rules factored the various zones and made nearest available taxi’s more visible and automatically initiated the bidding and awarded the job to the right driver.	This helped a lot in reducing the customer waiting time from 30 minutes to just 5 minutes and thereby resulted in more jobs that could be taken rather than the conventional manual mode.

3	Recording of Jobs undertaken	With the help of Caller ID interface and system capturing the point of pick up, drop and real time tracking helping to track the Taxi till the customer is dropped at the destination helped to record the activity of a job from initiation to completion.	It helped the customer to eliminate the manual process of entering the details into the system which required more resources in terms of man power, time , money, paper work etc which had a telling effect on the system.

4	Jobs Done	IDEE dispatch system helped the customer to see the no. of jobs based on booking types such as advance/current at one glance with their status.	This helped the management to understand how many jobs were done from time to time instantly by just logging into the internet anywhere at anytime. This facilitated the top management to access these reports anytime anywhere there the unique facility for borderless remote administration.

5	Revenue	We integrated the Taxi meter with our MCT so that the taxi fares can be captured and transmitted wirelessly from the device to our system. This helped to remotely capture the revenue accruing from the day to day operations and helped the Taxi operator in the revenue collection process.	The system is robust to allow the customer to generate revenue report by Taxi/ Time frame/ Driver/ Corporate customer. Taxi company saved process time of 24hrs to know the Revenue of Taxi operations on the previous day through manual recording process.

6	Unhappy customers	The customer were unhappy as they had to wait for over 30 minutes for Taxi arrival, moreover frustrated to see even taxi not arriving and call centre personnel helpless due to inability to trace the Taxi. IDEE, with its rule based dispatch engine tracked available taxis closest to the customer and awarded the job and parallely announced the Taxi no. and arrival time to the customer.	The customers were picked up within 5 to 10 max. They didn’t have to wait for over 30 minutes. Moreover, they knew the ETA ( Expected Time Of Taxi Arrival).

7	Call centre efficiency	The call centre agents were frustrated with the manual dispatch system. Drivers don’t say exactly where they are etc. They did not have a mechanism to log every call and see the details of the job & status of them. Well, IDEE with its CRM module helped the Taxi Operator to measure QoS ( Quality of Service ).	The system captured the duration of each call and also incorporated voice recording of each call that is stored as voice file in the history such that the call centre operations in charge can play these files sitting remotely anywhere anytime to access the service level of the call centre and decide on the improvements/ re-training exercise on customer support accordingly.

12	Taxi Fleet Maintenance	Convention recording of mileage and forthcoming service dates etc missed because these remained in the mind of an individual. IDEE provided a fleet maintenance module which automatically recorded the current odometer reading and checked with the settings for engine oil change, service etc and provided an automatic alert mechanism to remind operators on due dates for service and parts replacement.	This helped a lot to eliminate emission of black smoke, minimize car break down and helped in the timely maintenance.