Manchester, UK. 29th July 2024: TouchStar Technologies are proud to announce that the major agricultural, commercial and home heating fuels supplier, Carr’s Billington, have selected the company as their preferred supplier for mobile digital solutions.
Background
Carr’s Billington Agriculture is a subsidiary company of The Billington Group, who are also the proud owner of Criddle & Co., English Provender Company and Billington Foods. Divisions within Carr’s Billington include retail, feed, machinery, fuel and central support and are located across the country from Brecon in Wales to Oban in Scotland. With regards to fuel, Carr’s Billington meet a diverse set of needs including agricultural fuel, lubricants, commercial fuel and home heating oil. With the latter, their wide network of depots allows Carr’s Billington Fuels to distribute heating oil quickly and efficiently to farms, commercial business and households throughout the served region.
Carr’s Billington Fuels also offer an automatic top-up service. Customers don’t have to remember to check their fuel levels as the company calculate the number of times a year they will need more heating oil and organise deliveries to suit personal demand.
With the continuous aim of further optimising their delivery service, Carr’s Billington recently began investigating the potential benefits of investing in a new platform of mobile hardware and software to guide drivers throughout their working day and to replace the legacy paper-based systems. After an exhaustive selection process, the company selected the ‘Fuelstar’ system from Manchester-based TouchStar Technologies.
The Requirement
After detailed consultation with senior Carr’s Billington operational personnel several key system requirements were identified, namely;
- Real-time transmission of e-POD’s to enable same / next day invoicing
- Control driver workflow to a standardised level resulting in operational improvements and enhancing safety & service
- Automated, electronic, start-of-day vehicle checks
- Single data entry – either on the tablet device or directly at the meter
- Supply of a back-office system to receive orders and facilitate route planning, scheduling and real-time monitoring
- Single Sign On
The company readily identified multiple benefits that would accrue from their adoption of the system, most notably;
- Future-proofing the delivery operation
- Availability of new and advanced functionality from the FuelStar application for Drivers and FuelStar back-office system for Office staff; including two-way and broadcast messaging from planning offices and Sat Nav capability, live updates & 3D mapping
- Additional in-cab capabilities such as phone function, multiple business applications and digital information repository
- Wireless connectivity to meters, printers & in-cab sound systems
- A mapping console showing real-time fleet locations, LOB, searchable trip compliance and much more
Client reaction
Philip Sharman (Director of Fuels, Carr’s Billington) is delighted by their choice of the FuelStar system: “We were very impressed with TouchStar’s overall professionalism in the pre-sale consultation phase. It was very clear that TouchStar solutions are specifically designed for the fuel distribution industry, based on their wealth of experience, and we are very confident FuelStar will streamline and improve our end-to-end delivery processes. We’re extremely excited to commence active use of the hardware and software and to start to accrue the numerous operational benefits.”
