At a multi-site fuel chain, tank gauging, pump automation and central reporting were integrated into one architecture, and stock loss came down measurably.
The customer
A fuel chain operating at five locations in Central Anatolia. Total daily sales volume of roughly 180 cubic metres, with three tanks and six pumps at each station.
The situation
Over the previous twelve months the customer had been seeing stock variances above the acceptable limit, both at physical count and at accounting close. Reporting formats were inconsistent between locations; tank levels were measured by hand and typed into a spreadsheet, and EPDK reporting was pulled together late. That created suspicion of loss or theft, and at the same time a risk of administrative penalty at inspection.
The first technical review found pumps from three different manufacturers, old serial communication cards and non-standard cabling across the stations. The data was being collected incorrectly at source, which meant every report produced at the centre would be wrong as well.
What was done
In the first stage, magnetostrictive tank probes were fitted to every tank at all five stations, and automatic level, temperature and water column readings were taken every thirty minutes through an ATG (automatic tank gauging) console. On the pump side, the control cards from the different manufacturers were consolidated under a single station automation platform, and communication was moved from RS-485 to TCP/IP.
In the second stage a redundant internet line was provisioned at each station. Pump, ATG and POS data were queued in a buffer on the station’s local server and forwarded over a secure channel to the Arbek reporting dashboard at the centre. EPDK-compliant daily sales and stock reports were produced automatically, and the accounting team no longer needed to key anything in by hand.
In the third stage, variance alarms were commissioned: when the difference between tank movement and pump sales passed a defined threshold, the location manager and central operations were alerted immediately. The point of loss became something that could be identified within hours.
Results
- Total stock variance fell by 40%.
- EPDK daily sales and stock reports became automatic; the accounting team’s manual entry disappeared.
- Variance between tank movement and pump sales became detectable within the day instead of at month end.
- All five stations became monitorable from a single centre.