Case Study
Gas Cylinder Refilling And Tracking System
Executive Summary
Our client XYZ Company is one of the largest Refrigeration and
Air Conditioning products distributors and has provided excellent and cost-effective
service to its customers for over 20 years. They are providing technical and after-sales
support with the help of the engineering team and advanced technology. The company takes
all the safety measures to protect the environment.
Problems faced
by XYZ Company
XYZ faced many issues in tracking the cylinders, reffing, picking up empty cylinders, and its distribution service. This service requires dealing with the customers, technical staff, and end-users. Apart from that, a team of engineers visits to provide services to the end-user. Integrating all these features into one system was the problem for XYZ.
For better customer service, on-time availability of the
resource is also essential. It was difficult for the company to maintain the engineers'
records, available cylinders, and consumed cylinders. Collecting the empty cylinders from
the Customer also needs tracking. Therefore, XYZ required a centralized system to display
branch-wise detailed information on the available cylinders.
Our
Solution
To resolve the problem of XYZ Company, we suggested a gas tracking online admin portal for managing the entire system and a customer portal for their clients to login into it to track their requests. With the help of these two portals, XYZ and Client both track their records, and a Mobile app for onsite engineers only to keep track of transactions of gases and equipment. XYZ and clients can easily manage and track the cylinders using our solution. The online portal provides centralized information on the cylinders branch-wise.
Key Features of Admin Portal:
The gas tracking portal provides a user-friendly interface with the following key features:
• The dashboard displays the graphical representation of the data, such as Branch name
and number of cylinders using Bar charts and Pie charts.
• Allows the user to manage
records of customers of each branch and their associated cylinders as well as keeping
track of the entire process of cylinders such as charges of cylinders on a timely basis,
transaction of gases by cylinders, and collection of cylinders from their branch-wise
customers.
• Allows two types of transactions Reclaim and Transfer. In the Reclaim, the
engineer fills the cylinder from the end-user, and in case of transfer, the engineer fills
the gas from the cylinder to the equipment.
• The Diary section allows users to view
rental, non-return, and timely collection of cylinders by reflecting monthly dates on the
Diary.
• Provides the feature of viewing records using different filters such as rental
charges, non-return charges, and collection. One can also view the related records of the
selected branch only.
• Displays different views of cylinder data such as hazardous and
non-hazardous, Cylinder age, and the number of cylinders by status with the help of charts
in the portal.
• Allows viewing the record on selecting the gas type as All Gas types,
Active Gas types, and Inactive Gas types.
• Branch-wise listing of used and available
cylinders.
• Allows changing cylinder status as Shipped, With Customer, Reply for
Collection, and Collected.
• The waste cylinder collection facility keeps records of
hazardous & Non-hazardous gases, which is helpful for safety measures of the
environment during the transaction of gases.
• Provided portal users with security
roles such as Admin, Bench staff, or Customer. Users can have their login credentials for
viewing data, but only the admin can manage records.
• Portal provides the auto-import
facility. All records in CSV files dumped in the upload location are imported daily.
Key features of Customer Portal
In our solution, we have provided a customer portal that helps keep track of their records. The customer portal provides all the necessary features at the customer end, which includes:
• Allows Customers and engineers to keep track of their cylinders.
• The Diary section
allows Customers to view rental charges, non-return charges, and collection of cylinders
timely by reflecting monthly basis dates on the Diary.
• Allows managing equipment such
as adding new equipment, editing, and deleting.
• Allows to make transactions against
their cylinders.
• Allows Customer to add cylinders in waste collection and mark lost
cylinders as required.
• Enables Customers to allocate cylinders to engineers as per
requirement.
• Enables Customers to manage users and engineers by providing required
credentials.
Key features of Mobile App
The mobile app helps engineers keep the records of the transaction of gases & equipment on the app by scanning cylinders, scanning equipment, creating new equipment as per requirement, and creating transactions are the app's main functionalities. Following are the essential features included in the app.
• Allows users to access with their login credentials.
• Helps maintain records by
performing Transactions of gases from or to cylinders as required.
• Scanning a
cylinder allows the user to enter the cylinder number or scan a QR code to create a
transaction. Scanning the cylinder automatically redirects to the cylinder information
page.
• Scanning equipment allows the user to scan the existing equipment or create new
equipment.
• Creating a transaction feature allows the user to perform the type of
transaction as reclaimed or transferred. Then this transaction is updated on the Kooltrack
portal.
Technologies Used
• DotNetNuke 9.10.02
• HTML, CSS, Java Script
Client Benefits-their improved statistics (Facts and Figures)
After implementing the gas tracking online admin portal for managing the entire system and a customer portal for their clients, XYZ experienced the following benefits:
• Reclaiming and
Refilling process simplified and reduced chances of errors dramatically, and customer
feedback was positive.
• The dashboard displays the graphical representation
of the data such as Branch name and number of cylinders using Bar charts and Pie
charts.
• Allows user to manage records of customers of each branch and their
associated cylinders as well as keeping track of entire process of cylinders such as
charges of cylinders on timely basis, Transaction of gases by cylinders and Collection of
cylinders from their branch-wise customers.
• After our solution customer portal for
our client customer implementation, now the client himself placed the request for pick
up.
• Customer can report for lost of cylinders to respective branch by provided
system.
• Client is able to keep track of monthly dues & collection of
gas-equipment by using provided calendar in the system.
• Keeps records of hazardous
& Non-hazardous gases which is helpful for safety measures of Environment during
transaction of gases.
• Transaction of gas made by engineers can be tracked by customer
through this application.
• Proper tracking was provided with email acknowledgments as
the order status changed.
• Now customer has a 360-degree view to track these cylinder
requests.
• Our client now has an online system that enables security roles for
different levels of users, such as customers, Admin, and branches for all users for better
management. These steps eliminate a lot of confusion among XYZ staff.
• It improved
XYZ's business through high productivity, reduced lead time, improved quality, reduced
space, and reduced unnecessary inventory at the customer end.
• Portal provides
auto-import facility where all records in csv file can be imported on daily basis.