The latest version of CODAS will be featured, including the new Health and Safety module, an automated scheduling function in Load Manager, enhancements to reporting through the Business Intelligence Database and to Online – the web extension to CODAS allowing out-of-hours business interaction and functionality for customers, sales staff and third-party delivery partners.

A new vehicle-optimised PC hardware platform for running the Deliverer and the Installations and Maintenance mobile extensions to CODAS – for tanker drivers and boiler maintenance engineers respectively – will be available for demonstration.

The CODAS Mobile functions for drivers and sales staff will also be on show. These easy-to-use CODAS extensions are delivered via Smartphone applications.

There will be an innovative server-free implementation of CODAS utilising the evolving capabilities of Cloud Computing. This exciting new development should prove of particular interest to potential users who would like to take advantage of the business benefits of CODAS, but without the responsibility for on-site hardware management.

FPS offers an excellent opportunity to find out what is in the new release, talk to the team and discuss topics that are of particular interest.

CDS will be on stand C39 and hopes that both existing, and prospective, CODAS users attending the show will make a point of visiting.

1.  All solutions appear to be cost prohibitive

2.  Vehicle tracking is seen as intrusive

3.  There is difficulty in quantifying the Return on Investment

4.  The contract period is cumbersome

5.  There are questions over system reliability when bringing together a number of separate

components

6.  It is too difficult to integrate into back office systems to get the best use of the information

7.  There are too many third parties involved

Deliverer, the on-truck extension to the market-leading CODAS software system for oil distributors, successfully resolves these issues in an innovative manner.

Vehicle tracking is included as part of the CODAS Deliverer licence option: there is no separate up-front or ongoing cost penalty and no contract period.  An integrated GPS module, already present within the PC platform, is utilised so that purchase and installation of separate hardware is rendered unnecessary, as is the involvement of third parties.

Taking all this into account, objections 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 are eliminated.

Vehicle tracking within Deliverer is implemented so seamlessly that it is, to all intents and purposes, invisible. As mentioned previously, all necessary components are incorporated into the main hardware platform and their primary purpose is the delivery of satellite navigation functionality for the driver.

Objection 2 is therefore not an issue.

Deliverer was designed specifically by CDS as a mobile, on-truck extension to its main CODAS operating software: integration was built-in from the outset and therefore comes as standard.

Objection 6, which can be a major factor when considering the adoption of vehicle-tracking technology, is therefore overcome.

Deliverer provides an advanced and fully-featured on-truck solution. It caters for full stocks functionality, delivery time/quantity information capture, payment processing, digital signature capture and SatNav integration, in addition to vehicle tracking.

Information is synchronised in real-time so that, employing advanced yet easy-to-use CODAS vehicle management tools, scheduling staff become aware of deviations from the day’s planned activities in sufficient time that informed decisions can be taken and remedial measures put in place.

Bill Lea, CDS Managing Director, commented ’Graham came to CDS after 30 years with Shell UK, 20 of them in sales, sales management and market economics. He therefore brought with him wide experience of the UK and European oil industries and this has further strengthened our expertise in the market within which we operate.

‘Graham will lead our sales and marketing activities, will be responsible for the development of enhanced relationships at all levels within our existing client base and for the creation of new business opportunities.

‘This appointment reflects the Company’s objective of developing people and structures that will allow the Directors to operate at a more strategic level, whilst also ensuring that an increasingly strong team is in place to manage the business on a day to day basis. It follows the prior appointment of Graeme Lea as Support Services Manager and represents further progress in our development plans.’

With the advent of the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) under EU Directive 2003/59, it has become more important than ever for Oil Distributors to be able to maintain an overview of the training status of their drivers.

The new Personnel/Health & Safety module also includes employee data capture and reporting, medical records and sickness/absence, again linked to interactive Timelines to provide high quality management information and overview tools.

Additionally it provides full incident/accident tracking and management functionality. The associated Incident Timeline allows full access to all linked documents, photographs and reports to help reduce the administrative burden of incident management.

Clients require the product to be extremely robust so that their normal business processes can be maintained on an uninterrupted basis, whether this be order entry, payment card processing with authorisation in real time, import and integration of web-entered orders and payments, vehicle scheduling, invoice and statement production, debtor monitoring or management reporting.

Equally important to customers, however, are the arrangements put in place by CDS to support CODAS users and to maintain that support irrespective of external circumstances. In this wider context, it means being able to protect against any situation which would result in the loss of, or the inability to access, such things as software product archives, source code, development project data, business information and the customer support Query Management System.

For these reasons, therefore, over the last two years CDS has invested very significant time, energy and capital in making its hardware and software infrastructures as ‘disaster-proof’ as possible, utilising the latest advances in technology.

As Graeme Lea, Support Services Manager, commented: ‘Our Disaster Recovery (DR) strategy has taken the form of building a copy of the CDS IT infrastructure at a nearby, though entirely separate, location. Transmitted over a high capacity fibre-optic link, itself subject to constant external monitoring and complex failover protection arrangements, all data changes made at CDS are replicated at the DR site continuously. The DR configuration can take over full functionality from the primary systems in a very short time, allowing for an almost seamless transition in the event of problems affecting the company’s Manchester office or its connectivity to the outside world. As the two sites share no network routes to the Internet, in the event of disaster the DR site presents us with a separate conduit for continued provision of all business operations.’

Taking the concept of disaster-proofing one step further, CDS’ IT systems have been configured to enable staff to continue working – including the provision of full and uninterrupted support to CODAS users – by remote means so that their physical presence in the office ceases to be a prerequisite. The benefits of this approach – not least to customers – were amply demonstrated in early January 2010 when the office was closed for 8 days as a result of snowfalls creating extremely hazardous driving conditions. Full working, including client support, was maintained as the entire company system was available to remote access via state-of-the-art secure login procedures, similar to those employed by banks and other major financial institutions.

The Show provides an excellent environment for clients, both existing and prospective, to discuss the industry-leading CODAS software, to preview the latest functionality and to gain an insight into the thinking behind the next generation of enhancements, all in a relaxed and informal setting.

Of equal importance, the dialogue is two-way, giving CDS an invaluable opportunity to listen to, and document, a substantial body of client observations for post-show consideration.

Attended by Managing and Product Directors together with Consultant, Sales, QA and Development staff, the stand allowed users an advance view of the latest CODAS version. Featuring significant changes in Business Intelligence/Management Information, an extended ‘family’ of on-truck applications with interfaces to an expanded range of meters and enhanced functionality for the boiler maintenance engineer package, this is scheduled for release this summer.

With three workstations connected to a CODAS server, plus client devices for both the tanker and boiler maintenance engineer mobile application extensions, CDS ensured the necessary resources were in place to demonstrate any aspect of the software – both existing functionality and new features – to stand visitors.

The show also provides an ideal forum for other exhibitors to informally investigate the potential for creating an interface for their products to the market-leading CODAS software – very often at the request of CODAS users themselves.

As Paul Willis, CDS Product Director, said: ‘Having created successful software the challenge is then to continuously improve the product, incorporating not only your own ideas but also customer-led innovations and feedback. FPS gives us the ideal environment to listen, and respond, to those views – representing as they often do contributions from all levels within clients’ organisations’.

CDS has successfully kept to a development schedule that has delivered a significantly enhanced new version of CODAS every year. The company’s aim is to continue that programme so that CODAS remains at the very forefront of the industry, providing new and expanded functionality to reflect the ever-changing requirements of users.

Building on the established benefits of being able to provide the customer with a Weights and Measures certified delivery ticket/invoice within a single printer environment, co-operative development between CDS and Alfons Haar allows The Deliverer to take advantage of new meter functionality as it is implemented.

Improving the delivery process

By linking the new functionality of the Alfons Haar meter to the proven capabilities of The Deliverer, CODAS considerably enhances the performance and monitoring of the entire delivery process. Drivers in the field are able to be provided with continuous real-time updates to their route/load including the addition, amendment and removal of tickets.

The two-way information flow allows scheduling staff at the depot to be kept abreast of the vehicle’s whereabouts at all times and of its progress against the day’s planned schedule.

The driver’s work is simplified as The Deliverer allows him to preset the Alfons Haar meter from the cab and to call back the actual delivered volume for the purposes of ticket/invoice printing, all at the touch of a button.

The entire delivery process is made simpler, faster and more efficient as a number of otherwise manual operations are replaced. Load reconciliation takes place on a ticket-by-ticket basis in real time so that post-load work at the depot is largely eliminated.

Certified proof of delivery

The Deliverer tells the Alfons Haar meter the quantity and grade of product required, and the meter automatically selects the compartment from which the fuel is to be drawn. The scope for mistakes is eliminated and the ability to print a ticket/invoice with the Weights and Measures certification that the data flow between meter and printer has not been tampered with is a powerful aid to customer confidence.

Enhancing operational productivity

Delivery flexibility is greatly enhanced because the distributor’s depot staff can make route changes in real time. The Deliverer’s two way data flow allows schedulers to determine whether a vehicle has the time/stock available to accommodate additional work, using up-to-the-minute information. This is especially important during busy times of year when urgent and ‘must go’ drops need to be added to the route, often at the last minute, and where an overview based on real, current data allows for high-quality, informed and timely decision-making.

Further Developments

To maximise The Deliverer’s benefits, an additional new CODAS development, the Vehicle Timeline, provides a powerful, centralised visual tool to monitor vehicle performance against plan.
As real-time information is received, comparison against scheduled delivery quantities and times is made and, using pre-set parameters, the vehicle header bar changes colour to alert the planner that a deviation from the plan has occurred.

At-a-glance awareness that a vehicle is either running early/late or low/high on stock allows remedial action to be taken much earlier in the day, whether the response is switching drops between trucks, or simply advising customers of a change in plan.

Calls and text messages to drivers and customers can be initiated from the Timeline and a sophisticated customer search function is included.

Together these CODAS features give the Distributor an up-to-the-minute picture of the activities of the delivery fleet, the flexibility and power to adjust schedules in real time, efficiency in the processing of delivery and stock transactions, and confidence in the accuracy of transaction data and documentation.

CODAS now supports integrated real-time business intelligence dashboards.  CODAS can make vital real time management information instantly available to all users, subject only to full user access restrictions for security and confidentiality.

This radical upgrade represents a step change in performance and functionality.  Traditionally, business intelligence data cannot be accessed in real time, typically requiring additional software systems and highly skilled consultants to extract and present the data. Moreover, critically important corporate data mandates a controlled circulation, again demanding skilled resource to manage data access. CODAS has completely overcome these difficulties through the creation of a business intelligence definition within the CODAS system itself, and with intrinsic data protection tools.

New functionality enables users to run queries by means of fast indexing techniques, as used in Internet search engines. It provides a management tool so that users can group information and build rules to aggregate transactional data in real time providing for rapid later retrieval.  Since the Dashboard allows multiple presentations to run in parallel, users can take almost any CODAS output and display it as the workstation wallpaper. Importantly, the display updates continuously, showing for example, competitor pricing, stock charts, aged debt reports, queries, summarisers, delivery timelines, and so on.

Most importantly, access to sensitive data is restricted by the normal CODAS controls on user access, so that users may only access data as permitted by their CODAS user profile, controlled at all times by senior managers.  Users can be allocated standard presentations appropriate to their function within the business, and can make their own choice of dashboard elements, which remain secure from access by others.

The CODAS Fuel Card Management suite allows distributors to manage cards, import  and price fuelling transactions and manage stock accounts for all the major agencies and service providers, as well as providing their fleet customers with comprehensive management information about their fuel card usage.

I&M will allow engineers on the road to operate on line to CODAS by means of mobile devices to:

• Access their daily work schedules
• Process transactions locally and synchronise with the CODAS system in the office
• Print worknotes with details of prices for materials, labour and parts, including non-stock items
• Collect payments from the customer
• Confirm transactions
• Pass transaction data back to CODAS to update customer accounts, sales ledger, records of van stocks etc

This use of I&M eliminates the wait for paperwork to arrive at the office, removes a substantial amount of administration, and ensures that management has up to the minute information on what is happening out in the field.