News

Just-in-time delivery

April 12, 2005

With warm weather in the air, one of the first things people do is fire up a barbeque grill. While purists stand by their charcoal, many consumers prefer the convenience of propane.

In 2004, there were 32 million exchanges of empty cylinders for filled ones. Now, three companies are teaming up to make getting that propane more convenient.

The Dekko kiosk system combines an elaborate propane tank storage and dispensing system with a touchscreen kiosk that allows customers to drop off an empty tank and purchase a replacement, any time of the day, any day of the week.

"The main response we continue to elicit from first-time users is 'Wow, this is really cool, what a great idea,'" said Dennis Blong, founder of Dekko, the company that invented the system. "We have had many customers thank us for providing this service. To me, this is going to guarantee the success of the program and qualify it as a kiosk that moves the whole field forward."

And while the system is indeed beneficial to the customer, it is just as helpful to Amerigas, whose propane is being delivered through the Dekko/WebRaiser system. Since each transaction is logged at the kiosk, managers always know the exact quantity of full and empty containers at every location — and can view that information remotely.

"This just-in-time situation will allow us to manage what is the optimum time for the driver to be at the store," added Dave Pataki, director of marketing for Amerigas.

"If 2 p.m. is the peak sales time for a particular day, then our driver should be there an hour before that, as opposed to arriving at 6 a.m. and then having to go back at 4 p.m. because they have run low."

"We also can look at the real-time data and develop better routing of the delivery process for an area moving forward," he added.

That routing and delivery is crucial to any business that ships a product to retail, with real profits on the line. In the case of the Dekko/WebRaiser system, the software automatically alerts Amerigas when a pre-set threshold is hit, initiating a new truck rollout with replacement inventory. "It is all real-time, so if demand were to increase on any given day, the machine alerts Amerigas so there wouldn't be a shortage of gas," Gonsiorowski added.

Blong is particularly proud of this project, given how tough it was to pull off.