THINK Gas has introduced global best practices in safety, processes, technology and customer relationship management in City Gas Distribution business and is committed to building a robust infrastructure to deliver natural gas to its customers. The company uses a unique, first of its kind Journey Management Application (JMA), which not only helps maintain records digitally but also the online status of various vehicle parameters. Here’s a snapshot of THINK Gas’ innovative service expanse…
THINK Gas has been set up as I Squared Capital’s Natural Gas and LNG platform in India and Asia.
Established in 2018, THINK Gas is a 4-year-old environmentally conscious company, which aims to benefit the country with the supply of natural gas to Domestic, Commercial, Industrial and Automotive (CNG) sectors. The company has seven licenses to operate city gas distribution networks in 13 districts in India, across the states of Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, altogether covering an area of 47,000 sqkms and a population of over 17 million.
Whilst CGD companies are building their core infrastructure over the earlier years of their development, a network of CNG Stations at OMC outlets is often set up to create a CNG ecosystem and cater to the immediate demands of the market. Gas is transported to these stations by Mobile Cascade Vehicles (MCVs). The movement of these vehicles for supply of natural gas from the mother stations to the daughter stations involves high risk and challenges such as keeping an eye and recording of the logistic movement of vehicles, manual maintenance of logbooks, and dependency on driver’s discipline for recording trip time & odometer reading. Manual interventions include data processing and analysis using excel sheets, planning to improve efficiency by minimizing idling time and improved scheduling of vehicles.
THINK Gas wanted to have a robust supply chain management mechanism that would effectively help in the deployment of CNG cascade vehicles, efficiently track demand patterns across different stations, determine traffic density on routes, analyse the waiting time for MCVs at the stations and also keep a check on driver’s discipline.
THINK Gas is the only city gas distribution company in India to develop and successfully implement an app and a web application - Journey Management Application (JMA), which not only helps maintain records digitally but also the online status of various vehicle parameters. A first of its kind, JMA supports English, Hindi, and other regional languages for easy comprehension, understanding and usage. The JMA is connected real-time with the company’s central control room – Nucleus that helps keep an eye on ground.
JMA allocates journey to drivers through a system-based control mechanism, tracks MCVs efficiently and has helped THINK Gas in smooth logistics and meeting our customer demands efficiently:
Digitisation of records and moving away from inconsistent manual record keeping
Integration with SCADA for trips allocation against dynamic demand
Regular online status of all MCVs for better planning and improved efficiency
Tracking and recording of the distance travelled by the vehicle
Filling, decanting and idling time of the vehicles at CNG stations/ OMC outlets
Create different login IDs for drivers with PIN based authentications
Installation of Front, Rear, and In-Cabin cameras for driver authentications and to keep a check on drivers’ discipline
Use of AI to identify need for break for a driver for proper sleep
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