IT for Fuel Delivery

With mobile communications and computer application, fuel oil dealers can automate a great deal of their delivery and management processes to improve efficiency and productivity. Implementing such technologies also accelerates the invoicing method, which could be a boon to the bottom line.

Digital Dispatcher



Digital Dispatcher is marketed as an inexpensive solution, the company’s literature says, because there is certainly “no huge hardware investment. Most shoppers currently possess the cell phones, computers and other hardware tools necessary to implement the method.”

“We usually use the mobile phone network as well as the mobile phone itself because the field mobile device, which you are able to choose up at the nearby Verizon, Sprint or AT&T store,” said Tom Duffey of Digital Dispatcher, based in Jenkintown, Pa. “That’s our point of differentiation. Smart phones and rugged tablets are very affordable. You are able to get a rugged tablet for under $200.” In comparison, ruggedized handheld computers and ruggedized laptops cost thousands of dollars, Duffey pointed out.

Learn more here on heating oil dispatch.

Digital Dispatcher includes a full back office suite, which interfaces with customer accounting software. This includes a fuel delivery field management answer for home heating oil deliveries, which features a comprehensive interface to existing customer accounting software program packages.

For example, Duffey said, work orders are picked up by the Digital Dispatcher plan, working in conjunction using the accounting software. The Digital Dispatcher plan features tools to help execute those work orders, including route optimization, which is growing increasingly useful, Duffey said. “There are a great deal of companies that are doing more same day, will-call deliveries in addition for the pre-defined routes,” he said, and Digital Dispatch is especially suited for that scenario. What would commonly involve “a cumbersome, labor-intensive voice communication between the dispatcher and a driver in the field might be managed with a couple of clicks of a mouse,” Duffey said.

The method also makes use of a Bluetooth connection within the field to interface with electronic registers on the oil trucks, and printers to print reports and delivery tickets.