Commodity Chemicals

Several applications served are highlighted below with some common business drivers that apply to all of them:

• Variable demand makes the concept of a regular route schedule obsolete.
• The ability of end users to deliver realistic demand forecasts can be challenging. Having access to changes in average daily consumption allows suppliers to run their operations much more efficiently.
• Serving customers across a wide geographic expanse (Every delivery has a quantifiable cost and if the delivery efficiency is improved the savings is a direct contribution to the bottom line). The goal is to make fewer, (but larger), deliveries per year while never running the risk of letting their customers run empty.
• The desire for supplier to differentiate their service level above price and responsiveness alone
• The desire by suppliers to actively push product to their customers as an alternative to simply responding to orders (suppliers know when reorder points are reached before their customers).
• Elimination of emergency orders, demurrage charges when there is inadequate capacity to accept a full delivery, and back haul / HazMat disposal costs.

Applications Served:

• Water Treatment

Two main applications of water treatment for TankLink are evaporator water treatment and waste water treatment.  Depending on the application we monitor a wide variety of bulk consumables including:

• Manufacturing Applications

We support a wide variety of manufacturing applications that consume vast amounts of basic commodity chemicals. Sulfuric Acid for example plays some part in the production of nearly all manufactured goods. The nearly endless list of applications includes the manufacture of other chemicals, petroleum refining, pickling metals, to pharmaceutical applications. Common commodity chemicals monitored by TankLink include:

In the US alone there are more than 400 billion pounds produced annually of just these 10 chemicals alone. The TankLink system currently monitors over 600 million gallons of products.

Specialty Chemicals

The business benefits of the TankLink system in specialty chemical applications overlap with commodity chemicals in vaying degrees depending on the circumstances, but there are also unique aspects to this market segment. Unique aspects can include:

• Logistics Challenges - Fewer blending/manufacturing facilities can translate to longer travel times to end user locations. To support end users with consumption rates, suppliers need to know if the average daily consumption varies off anticipated rates. End users with inappropriately small bulk storage capacity historically make it the supplier's problem to make sure they never run empty.
• MRP/Batch Production Planning Challenges - Emergency orders can wreak havoc on production schedules. TankLink can eliminate emergency orders and when surprises arise suppliers can make educated decisions about moving around a batch production schedule because they have good data on who will need what products and when.

Applications Served:

Petrochemicals (Fuels & Lubes)

The business of distribution of petroleum products in the US is a highly competitive business that’s going through constant change through acquisition and consolidation. This is a commodity business where distribution companies have no control over the costs of the products, but they have significant control over the costs of doing business. TankLink allows suppliers to maintain high fill efficiencies and actively track their performance on a customer by customer basis. Suppliers can see how much it’s costing to supply product in each tank and measure the trend. TankLink has close partnerships in this market space with companies that employ the telemetry data to feed active route accounting applications, fleet management, and complete ERP integration.

Food Industry

The trend in food production in the US is for companies to be focused on consumer trends and be nimble in their response. One of the enablers is by having fewer suppliers that are more tightly integrated into their process. Food Producers ability to articulate meaningful demand forecasts to suppliers varies across companies and industries. One critical point of integration between supplier and manufacturer remains the bulk tank. TankLink allows for consumption trends to be analyzed. Many suppliers talk of the “Friday afternoon surprise” when a customer calls in a panic that they don’t have adequate capacity for a weekend production run. TankLink eliminates the surprise.