N EWS & T RE N D S
PRODUCT CASE STUDY: SUBURBAN PROPANE DEPLOYS 900 RAVEN®
LOCATIONS ADD Systems (Flanders, N.J.) and Suburban Propane, L.P (Whippany, N.J.), have announced the completion of a roll- out of more than 900 Raven units in 134 Suburban Propane customer service cen- ters across the country. RAVEN® (Remote Access Vehicle Extended Network) is a handheld computer used by propane, heating oil and wholesale distribution com- panies to automate delivery information and billing, Suburban Propane has had handheld units in their trucks tied to elec- tronic registers since the late nineties. In September of 2010, Neil Scanlon, vice presi- dent of Information Services, indicated they would need to pursue a different direction if they were going to achieve the necessary improvements and efficiencies that were so
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critical to their business plan, "The existing technology had outlasted its useful life." ADD Systems, Suburban Propane's
long time provider of back office software, was approached and agreed to take on the challenge to design, develop and deploy the enhancements using ADD System's existing RAVEN product. In October of 201 0 a successful pilot was conducted in their Augusta, New Jersey customer service center using the out-of-box functional- ity offered with Raven. In March of 2011, ADD Systems completed necessary devel- opment, which included nearly a decade of Suburban Propane specific enhancements developed in the old solution. That same month Suburban initiated a fully func- tional pilot with RAVEN at their Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Millsboro, Delaware loca- tions. After successfully running for two weeks, the team received the green light to move ahead with full deployment.
Due to the streamlined communication
process, Suburban can now make changes, send them to all 134 customer service centers, and download those changes in 7-8 minutes a day, down from the previous transmis- sion times of 45 - 60 minutes. RAVEN also replaced a complicated printing process for the drivers with a simple, quick solution resulting in more efficient deliveries, less driver frustration and fewer delays. Training time has also been reduced
with RAVEN. Suburban was able to pro- vide a 30 minute training webinar for their drivers over the Internet, eliminat- ing costly travel to all 134 remote sites. Suburban finds that drivers quickly accept the RAVEN application and can make deliveries within a day of training. Vince Rooney, director of engineering at Suburban Propane said, "I would say that this was one of the most successful deploy- ments that I have been involved in. The
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Email: sabbate@cetane.net www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | JANUARY 2012 11
