SkyBitz Tank Monitoring Streamlines Dispatch Operations for S.A. White Oil Company

Customer service is at the heart of tank monitoring implementation for Georgia-based S.A. White Oil Company

Since 1926, S.A. White Oil Company based out of Marietta, Georgia has built a reputation in the petroleum distribution business primarily on personalized customer attention and good old-fashioned friendship. Today, as a female-owned and operated business, they pride themselves on these values, and have built a culture focused on quality customer service, efficient work processes, and constant improvement through investments in their people and technology.

Many of the company’s drivers have been working for S.A. White Oil for 10 to 25 years, resulting in direct customer interaction, such as daily phone calls to ensure customer deliveries are made in a timely and expedited manner. With over 1,000 customers and over half of the tanks they own being monitored by SkyBitz tank monitoring technology, the convergence of digital tools and tried and true customer service remains at the forefront of their success.

Challenge: Efficiently track tank locations & fuel levels to meet variations in customer demand

It is imperative for the team at S.A. White Oil to understand their customers’ business, as this has played a monumental role in how they have grown their operation over the years. With many of their fuel deliveries concentrated in the construction industry, it is essential for the team to understand variations in demand on a daily basis. Weather and the economy are constantly disrupting the distribution schedule across the state, and that requires constant attention from the S.A. White dispatch and management team.

For instance, one of their customers is working on a massive construction project with the Department of Transportation. When the project is moving forward at full throttle, the equipment usage varies. On some days, the equipment is being utilized 24 hours a day, while on other days, the equipment is only used for 12 hours. If you factor in weather conditions, such as rain which is frequent in the South, the entire project comes to a screeching halt from one week to the next. This can significantly reduce the need for refueling at the customer site that week, requiring daily visibility and management to avoid overruns.

Circumstances such as these impact S.A. White’s distribution schedule and must be taken into account on a daily basis in order for them to run an efficient operation. The economy also plays a huge role, as distribution schedules change drastically when there is a shift in rack rates, and customers look for ways to take advantage of declining fuel prices. Asset depreciation and labor costs can also eat into profits when fluctuations with the economy and customer demands are constantly changing.

On the flip side, as companies look to improve productivity and cut costs across their own operation, they also recognize the risks when transferring manual processes into digital ones from a customer perspective. While overruns may seem counterproductive, S.A. White Oil Company makes every effort to perform efficiency checks so their customers never run out of fuel, which is the biggest mistake that can be made in this industry. Transitioning to digital processes must be strategically planned across the operation, utilizing best practices and the aegis of their partners for both short-term and long-term gain.

Solution: SkyBitz Asset Monitoring Platform

SkyBitz has an open API that allows them to integrate into any custom or proprietary TMS system, providing robust yet standardized reports, visual dashboards, trends analytics, and custom XML feeds. In addition, they are a Certified Integration Partner for McLeod, which enables them to integrate their asset monitoring platform, InSight, directly with Legend Transportation’s existing TMS software, allowing their operations team to connect the dots between their assets, product shipments, and their customers. This automated digital process provides a more accurate revenue stream, giving the users deeper visibility across its sales, dispatch, compliance, and billing divisions. 

With SkyBitz Asset Monitoring, Legend Transportation can search, locate, and redeploy trailers that have been sitting idle. They’re now able to manage trailers more efficiently using the Yard Check feature. They can perform a virtual inventory of what trailers are sitting in the yard, for how long, and then reassign them to increase the number of loads per month carried by each trailer. This helps maximize margins and reduce the need to purchase additional trailers, which directly contributes to lowering capital expenses. 

Legend also provides customers with access to their portal, allowing them to log in, enter a shipment number, and track their shipment in real time from anywhere in the world.

Solution SkyBitz tank tracking & monitoring technology

Approximately twenty years ago, S.A. White Oil implemented SkyBitz tank monitoring technology in an effort to locate and keep track of their own tanks, scattered and continuously moving throughout their various customer sites spanning the State of Georgia. What was traditionally a manual process requiring countless hours of employees calling and traveling to remote locations to look for lost tanks, is now as simple as logging into the SkyBitz SMARTank platform and pulling up a dashboard that identifies a tanks’ physical GPS location.

S.A. White Oil now has a much more efficient task of track and fill, eliminating the need to send human bodies half-way across the State, only to realize the tanks were moved. Dispatch knows exactly where the customer has moved the tank, so the next delivery can be efficiently routed. 

In addition to sheer location tracking of S.A. White’s tanks, the integration of tank level sensors provides readings of tank capacity for the purpose of automating refueling dispatch schedules through the use of cloud-based technology. Now, both the drivers and the dispatch teams have access to monitored tanks and can service those while in the area using the SkyBitz SMARTank platform.

Impact: Ability to Track Tank Monitors Daily & Save Money Through Increased Efficiency

SkyBitz SMARTank Monitoring now helps S.A. White Oil Company reduce, and in some cases eliminate routes, which allows them to make more efficient use of their drivers’ time while reducing the wear and tear on their vehicles.

As S.A. White Oil Company adds more tanks each month, they recognize how valuable the data insight is to their operation and that of their customers. Hardware is also a huge factor in the petroleum distribution market, as the ruggedized sensor technology is a critical component when it comes to performance, especially as customers move tanks from one site to another, sometimes using forklifts and other construction equipment.

The tank monitoring hardware is easy to install, as their team has been installing the tank sensors themselves for almost twenty years. As technology changes and innovative new sensors hit the market, SkyBitz customer experience teams are on hand to assist with new technology migrations when the need arises.

S.A. White Oil Company Achieved with SkyBitz

By adopting SkyBitz SMARTank™ technology, S.A. White Oil Company realized several key operational and customer service benefits:

• Efficient Tracking & Monitoring Technology – The SMARTank platform allows the team to identify the physical GPS location of tanks instantly.
• Eliminate Unnecessary Stops – Deliver more gallons with fewer stops and significantly reduce distribution costs.
• Keep Your Customers Happy – With real-time visibility into tank levels, S.A. White ensures customers never run out of fuel.