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.