Touchstar secure large upgrade order from Certas Energy
29 November 2022
Touchstar secure large upgrade order from Certas
Energy
Touchstar
are delighted to announce the award of a substantial order from major client
Certas Energy to upgrade their tanker fleet to the latest Cloud based control
center system utilizing the Android-based in cab tablets.
Background
Certas Energy is the largest fuel and lubricant distributor
in Great Britain, with impressive statistics to match;
·
2300 employees
·
Over 33 million litres of fuel stock held in
depots
·
100 depots
·
1000 retail sites
·
Over 900 tankers
The company, which has grown through several acquisitions
over the last ten years, delivers in excess of 5 billion litres of fuel per
year.
Historical Relationship
Certas Energy is a company that prides itself on providing
innovative alternatives to traditional fuel supply arrangements. Certas Energy employs
high standards of operation in order to meet the expectations of its customers,
but following a number of acquisitions the company found that its drivers had
come through a mixture of training procedures and found it difficult to change
and adapt to the standards set by Certas.
In 2014, the challenges Certas Energy faced, provided an
opportunity to bring in TouchStar to improve several processes, most
importantly ensuring compliance and boosting customer service. TouchStar’s
‘FuelStar’ on-board solutions enabled drivers to fill out the majority of their
forms digitally, instantly reducing the amount of time spent on paperwork and
cutting the chances of mistakes being made. The solution offered many
additional benefits to Certas Energy and its drivers, from a built-in satellite
navigation system to detailed delivery updates and task location tracking. The software’s
Mapping Console matches the wealth of client and order information contained
within FuelStar with GPS technology to provide accurate real-time data on the
geographical positioning of vehicles and LOB (Load on Board) status. The
available information can be utilised to optimise delivery processes. For
example, ‘expected LOB’ data can be used to re-purpose the LOB to different
deliveries.
The FuelStar application is integrated with the back-office
software CODAS, supplied by CDS. Together this solution is now considered a
critical business tool that adds significant benefit to Certas Energy operations
on a daily basis.
A new challenge
Certas Energy have used the Windows CE platform (software
and hardware) variant of ‘FuelStar’ for driver activity and process controls,
since 2015. Whilst Touchstar continue to support the FuelStar application and
the mobile computing device (TS3000, Hawk), Microsoft have now withdrawn
support for the Windows CE platform. Like many existing Touchstar clients,
Certas Energy expressed a desire to undertake a technology swap out and upgrade
to modern and futureproof replacement systems.
The upgraded solution includes a new in-cab Driver
application, FuelStar, running on the latest octo core processing ATEX rated
Android tablet theTS3300. The in-cab device interfaces to the new Cloud based FuelStar
Back Office. The tablet continues to
enhance the operational performance with added benefits such as 4G, on-board
WIFI, integration with in-cab sound systems, meters and printers, real-time
interface with CODAS and the ability to run other applications on the device.
The
benefits of upgrading
Gordon Hyland, Sales Director for
the Touchstar Fuel division, describes why the migration route to Android will
be of immense benefit to Certas Energy: “The Android platform has given us the
chance to increase the capabilities of our solutions, with improved workflows
and communication and customers are telling us that this has had a major impact
on their digitisation journeys. Recognising that a ‘big bang’ approach to
hardware upgrading would not be preferable for some of our customers, we have
been careful to include the ability to run Android and Windows CE devices in
parallel within the fleet. This means transition for Certas Energy can
happen at a pace that suits their business.
Importantly, FuelStar Android can
be deployed with no change to CODAS and related systems required. Our new
middleware system handles all the data and file transfers, in and out of back-
office systems, so there is no impact to third party software providers. This
means minimal disruption to the
current working methods for drivers and negates the need for re-training.”
FuelStar Back Office is a
Cloud based product. This offers a quick rollout capability, high system security,
scalability and avoids costly and difficult local installations. Hosted on the
Microsoft Azure platform, information is always available anywhere in the
world. The system scales on demand with no wasted capacity and disaster
recovery options are robust, simple and inexpensive to implement. Using mobile
services ‘push’ technology, only new and changed information is sent to and
from the TS3300 devices, reducing connection time and data usage.
A true long-term partnership
The detailed solution was based upon feedback
and guidance from Chris La Banca, IT Business Support Manager, Stephan Birtwistle, CODAS Application & Systems Manager, and Nathan Broad, IT Director at Certas Energy and Touchstar’s
experience of working with the company over many years.
Nathan
Broad comments: “Thanks to TouchStar we are able to have more informed
conversations, plan better and offer an improved service to our customers. The
solution also guarantees compliance and gives us a greater degree of accuracy
in our conversations with our sales team and of course our customers.
We want to continue to grow and become ever more productive
with our time. The new Android solution will help Certas Energy capture, move,
and manage critical information, providing our organisation with the means to
access real-time information anytime and anywhere enabling us to make faster
and smarter business decisions”.