Argyle Welding Supply is a family-owned wholesale distributor of industrial, medical and specialty gases, welding equipment and supplies, and water treatment chemicals. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Albuquerque, NM, the company operates branches in Las Cruces, NM and El Paso, TX. Employees strive to ensure high quality products are delivered promptly while adhering to strict safety standards. As testament to the companyโs success, business continues to grow in spite of challenging economic conditions.
However, that success didnโt come easy. Argyle often lacked reliable data to provide accurate billing, resolve customer disputes and account for the 26,000 cylinders they managed. The company struggled with these problems until a vendor introduced them to TrackAbout, giving them the confidence to invest in an advanced asset tracking system.
The Dangers of Unreliable Information
Without a modern asset tracking software system, distributors maintain asset balances manually by noting the size and number of cylinders as they are delivered to and returned from their customers. This method consumes a substantial amount of time to maintain and is susceptible to manual error. Often a variety of discrepancies arise as both distributors and customers must maintain separate paper-based records.
โWe accounted for cylinders on an in and out basis,โ said Jim Wright, President of Argyle Welding Supply. โUnfortunately, that resulted in constant โhe said, she saidโ situations over delivery, asset balances and billing. Weโd argue that the customerโs signature was evidence, but they were quick to say our driver didnโt write down the exception. It was an endless battle.โ
The packaged gas industry is extremely competitive and distributors must comply with an increasing array of challenges, including pricing and government regulations. But there is little room to compete on price since industrial gas is a commodity that lacks differentiation. Instead distributors focus on ways to increase efficiencies, reduce costs and provide exceptional customer service.
โWe never want customers to take their business elsewhere so we found ourselves caving in because we didnโt have the indisputable backup we needed,โ said Wright. โIt affected our business financially as we were often writing off lost cylinders and rental revenue, not to mention the time spent arguing these disputes.โ
Wright admitted that Argyle employees made their share of mistakes such as forgetting to add a cylinder to a customerโs account or a driver picking up a return from the wrong customer. Or there was the time when a 2,000 pound carbon dioxide bulk tank was installed at a customer site and wasnโt added to the customerโs account. โIt was about two and a half years before we discovered it,โ said Wright. โWith a rental fee of $175 per month, we hadnโt billed for over $5,000. It wasnโt easy approaching the customer with that.โ
Moving to a Modern Tracking Software Solution
Given the problems Argyle experienced, it might seem strange that the company didnโt implement a modern asset tracking system sooner.
โWe looked at a few tracking systems, but none of them seemed to be worth the investment,โ said Wright. โThat is, until one of our suppliers referred us to TrackAbout.โ
That supplier, one of the worldโs largest providers of industrial gases, had implemented TrackAbout to manage their U.S. operations several years before. After visiting the companyโs facility in Phoenix, AZ to learn how they were using TrackAbout to manage their cylinder fleet, Wright contacted TrackAbout to learn more.
Thatโs when TrackAbout sales representative Doug OโDell invited Wright to visit a customer site in Nebraska. โWe showed him the customerโs production facility and visited one of their retail stores,โ said OโDell. โThere were opportunities to speak with employees to learn about how they were using TrackAbout throughout their operations and with management to gain insight into their implementation and overall cylinder tracking philosophy.โ
It was a positive experience for Wright. โI remember being very impressed by their plant and their operations. And when I saw how well TrackAbout worked for them, I knew it would work for us too. It was time to invest.โ
Working Smarter with Better Information
TrackAbout is a closed-loop asset tracking solution which leverages technology to eliminate the inefficiencies of traditional paper-based systems. Data is collected at key stages via mobile handheld computers, providing timely, accurate information that is free of manual keying errors. Smart technology automatically and intelligently corrects mistakes such as missing scans, duplicate serial numbers and syncing mobile units out of sequence. TrackAbout creates a digital historical information record for each asset which is stored indefinitely and available for instant recall.
โWhat really amazed me was the ability to capture cylinder history,โ said Wright. โWe now have the evidence to back up our claims in customer disputes. We can provide our customers with specific detail as to the exact cylinder, order number and delivery date and time. We can even tell them when the cylinder was scanned on and off the truck. This adds legitimacy to our claims and it has reduced dramatically the financial issues weโd experienced.โ
Wright added that TrackAbout also helps Argyle support their customersโ businesses. Previously, when cylinders got mixed up, the customer didnโt always get credit for their return. For example, on a busy Saturday night when a restaurant runs out of CO2, the manager borrows a cylinder from their competitor across the street. The borrowed cylinder gets returned to the restaurantโs gas supplier and the restaurant gets credit for the borrowed cylinder while the competitor continues to pay rent on a cylinder they donโt have.
โWith TrackAbout, weโre able to ensure our customers get credit no matter who returns the cylinder,โ said Wright. โOur customers are confident that we account for our cylinders accurately and are applying credits correctly. Theyโve come to trust our system and Iโm certain that makes them more likely to continue doing business with us.โ
Wright also noted that Argyle is deploying cylinders more effectively with TrackAbout. โWe know the number of cylinders at each location at the click of a mouse,โ he said. โBut more importantly, we also know the characteristics of each. For example, itโs easy to see how long a filled cylinder has been sitting so we are sure to rotate our stock to prevent the product from expiring. And we also are able to reallocate cylinders among our locations more efficiently. We can tell if a location is hoarding cylinders and transfer some of them to correct a shortage at another location.โ
A Real Return on Investment
TrackAboutโs experience has proven that typically over five percent of a distributorโs cylinder fleet is out at customer sites and not collecting rent. By capturing unique asset IDs, TrackAbout uncovers these cylinders and corrects errant balances as empty cylinders cycle back to the distributor.
Armed with accurate asset balances, Argyle was able to start billing for the cylinders that werenโt accounted for. โWe increased our rental income by about six to eight percent,โ he said.
โOverall, TrackAbout enables us to do a better job,โ said Wright. โWe will never forget to bill for a 2,000 lb. bulk tank again.โ
About TrackAbout
TrackAboutยฎ is a scalable software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to track, manage, maintain and optionally rent portable physical assets. Items are tagged using barcodes or RFID tags. Data is collected using rugged handheld scanners, smartphones, tablets or integration from other systems. Dynamic fields and forms may be easily added to support a companyโs unique workflows. TrackAbout integrates all of this information with existing enterprise systems. Founded in 2000, TrackAbout has evolved through an active relationship with our customer base. For more information, visit www.trackabout.com.
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