Solving distribution challenges

摘要

For distributors of industrial gases and hardgoods, distribution as a percent of operating costs is significant. In fact, according to John Campbell of Intelligas Consulting, cylinder delivery is the most important cost in a typical distributor's operations and often the least understood and managed. Today, the availability of GPS, asset tracking tools, and increasingly sophisticated software enable distributors to capture the data needed to understand and manage their distribution costs in a way not possible even five years ago. As David Schaer, President of Computers Unlimited (CU) writes in his column on page 52, technology is now at hand that allows industrial gas distributors to implement Uber-like capabilities to improve delivery operation efficiencies.