Velostics

The Problem

Fuel terminals business is a low margin, high volume play. Improving volume is only way to grow. Since demand is generally stable, this can be achieved by making your terminals more attractive to carriers, usually due to lower wait times. Terminal operators struggle to move vehicles in and out quickly, eliminate errors from manual driver and product key-in, and balance load between peak and off-peak hours.

Warehouse operators struggle to move vehicles in and out of the facility grounds quickly, keep doors open for loading and unloading, eliminate manual and paper-based processes that cause delays and increase admin overhead costs. Covid has introduced additional motivator to eliminate the face-to-face manual interactions and improve safety for facility crews. The problems are similar across the 400,000+ warehouses in the US but the 20,000 or so largest ones (100K+ sqft) are most hit due to scale.

Challenges

Carrier Challenges (Terminal)

• No visibility into allocation data causes delays on site - If driver cannot load because end customer is out of allocation, this may be a wasted trip. At best, it causes delays at terminal while driver is waiting in the bay to get a new load. At worst, it is a waisted trip and one fewer loads delivered hurting driver and carrier revenue.
• No visibility into wait times at terminals - This causes drivers to wait unexpectedly long reducing the number of loads they can deliver in a day and reducing their and the carrier’s revenue.
• Delays to getting BOL - Carriers cannot invoice for job done until paper makes it back to their office. Drivers will usually do this weekly or rarely daily which increases DSO and hampers cashflow.
• Misplaced loads (i.e. wrong customer, product, etc.) - Errors with load information delay payments and increase admin cost for each load as it takes time to resolve errors, get corrected invoices out to customers.

Terminal Operator Challenges

• Takes time to enter order manually - Driver can take from 38 seconds to 4+ minutes to enter their information. This depends on number of products, how many orders they are hauling (one load vs split load going to two stores)
• Manual entry is error prone - Driver could enter wrong code unintentionally and charge wrong account or load wrong product and contaminate his vehicle or the facility. Sometimes the driver could enter wrong information intentionally:
• “Trailer surfing” - If trailer/vehicle EPA certification is not valid per terminal system, driver can try other numbers so they can get loaded.
• “Allocation stealing” or “Fishing” - If no allocation available for load customer, driver can try to load on other accounts and let accountants worry about it later.
• Paper BOL further delays trucks from leaving
• Long lines outside on city streets during peak hours could lead to fines for terminals.

What Terminals Have Done or Are Doing Already?

Terminals have taken a number of optimization steps and are continuously looking to reduce their costs and improve throughput at terminal. Here are some of what they have already done:

• Implement Terminal Automation Systems (or Terminal Management System, TMS). This has automated most activities at the terminal, making it largely human-free operation. TMS controls everything from inventory, to loading, to invoicing.
• Making more products available in more bays. This eliminates the driver to pull out of a loading bay and go to another for the rest of his load.
• Making more products available on more loading arms. This enables multiple compartments to be loaded as needed, parallelizing the loading process and reducing delays.

The Solution

For fuel terminal and warehouse operators, Velostics is a contactless logistics solution that eliminates manual and face to face checkin processes and paperwork. The resulting savings in gate-to-gate time and error reduction improve facility throughput and reduce admin overhead cost. Terminals can improve throughput by 5-8%, realizing $235K+ per terminal in net profit improvement. Warehouses can reduce turnaround time by 20+ minutes, reducing detention fees and admin (receiving clerk) costs.

For Terminals, Velostics integrates with terminal management systems and carrier dispatch to bridge the gap between terminals and carriers and improve gate-to-gate time and eliminate errors. For Warehouses, Velostics provides a contactless process that enables drivers delivering or loading at a warehouse to check in and out faster and without the need for face-to-face interactions and exchanging paper. Furthermore, delays are eliminated as critical, time-consuming BOL/PO prep work can be handled in advance before the driver arrives at the facility.

Velostics Solution - Velostics Pass

Warehouse Challenges

• PO Reconciliation against BOL actuals. It can be as little as a minute or two to 20-30 minutes+. It is a manual process involving comparing product names on paper vs PO items in screen. Different companies call the same product by different names so it is not always straight-forward. For small loads with 1-2 items, it is easy. But you can have large loads 2-3 pages of line items that can take up to an hour or more.
• Takes time to check in drivers - they are checked in in order and can wait in line a long time for clerk to process them. Especially with COVID, this is a safety issue.
• Drivers walking to and from trucks and receiving desk takes time - 2-5 minutes up to 15 in large facilities.
• Drivers are often not wearing masks (50%).
• A number of paper-based processes and checklists (QA reports, tally sheets, etc.) duplicate work and take time to fill out.

Carrier Challenges (Warehouse)

• Delays on site - Carrier allow for a standard wait time per load - typically 1-2 hrs. Any time beyond this can lead to detention charges (if warehouse is at fault), lost money (driver is not driving on next load but waiting), or disputes to figure out who is at fault.
• Delays to getting BOL - Carriers cannot invoice for job done until paper makes it back to their office.
• Visibility into status of brokered loads. Owned fleet is managed by EDL/fleet management systems (FMS) so there is good visibility into status and ETAs to help dispatch. Brokered loads do not have such access.
• Drivers will usually provide BOLs/PODs to their own company on a weekly basis and then it takes some more to make it to broker which increases DSO and hampers cashflow.