National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/82384
MARKETING & SUPPLY BY MAURAKELLER Streamlining Dispatch & Distribution DELIVERING MORE WITH LESS leum companies of every size are re-ordering their priorities and re-examining their dispatch and delivery processes with a single goal in mind; to streamline the fuel dispatch and delivery experi- ence and gain the competitive advantage. According to John Redmond, vice president of E product strategy at Advanced Digital Data, Inc., as the economy continues to inch along at a slowly VER SINCE THE DAYS WHEN FREIGHT WAS delivered via horse-drawn wagons, people have been looking for ways to make delivery and distribution of a load a little bit easier. Today, petro- at a higher level should not be overlooked. If a customer runs out of product, you are at a high risk of losing them. The logistic products available from ADD Systems and some of our technology partners provide great tools to deliver more with less and service your customers at a higher level." As Redmond explains, the ADD Energy E3 is an enterprise product that addresses all of the opera- tional needs of the downstream petroleum market, including fuel oil and propane marketers, gasoline wholesalers and lubricant distributors. "There are many aspects of our product that address delivery and dispatch. One of our core " Delivering more product with the same or less resources should be a goal of every petroleum marketer," says Advanced Digital Data's John Redmond. "But servicing the customer at a higher level should not be overlooked. If a customer runs out of product, you are at a high risk of losing them." improving rate, companies continue to look for more ways to drive costs out of their business. "Each company determines their own method- ology to accomplish this," Redmond says. "Some focus on driving more productivity by focusing on fine turning our available delivery forecasting capa- bilities. Others have elected to reduce miles driven by routing and tracking delivery vehicles. The more successful companies focus on improving all aspects of their delivery operations." Since 1973, New Jersey-based Advanced Digital Data has been providing computer solutions for the petroleum, propane and convenience store industries. What's more, today's market conditions are extremely challenging. Petroleum prices are vola- tile and customers are more demanding and have a higher expectation of performance. "Delivering more product with the same or less resources should be a goal of every petroleum mar- keter," Redmond says. "But servicing the customer 14 SEPTEMBER 2012 capabilities is to accurately forecast customer deliveries based on many long proven algo- rithms," Redmond says. "We also interface with a number of tank monitoring systems. The tank monitors provide actual daily in-tank volume readings, which are used by E3 to refine the fore- casted due date." E3 also includes an embedded delivery fleet planning and optimization capability. As such, deliveries can be selected based on a number of criteria, assigned to vehicles and routes can be optimized using sophisticated routing and map- ping technology. "Those assigned deliveries can be shipped off to our on-board Raven truck computing system," Redmond says. "Vehicles can be tracked on a real time basis, point of sale invoices can be produced and delivery postings to A/R can be fully automated." And as Randy Harp, product sales strategy manager at Heartland Payment Systems explains, NPN Magazine n www.npnweb.com