Asset tracking done right.

DataWeld’s AcuTrax software has been designed to meet the unique requirements of moveable assets such as compressed gas cylinders in the welding supply industry, oxygen cylinders in the home medical industry, totes, drums and cylinders in the chemical industry as well as ton containers and cylinders in the chlorine industry. Regardless of your industry, if you have cylinders, and they move, you need help tracking them and AcuTrax was developed to help you track every movement of your cylinder or container.

Sometimes the first question that needs to be answered when the discussion of tracking cylinders comes up is: Why? Why track cylinders at all? If you are a compressed gas distributor and charge rent for the use of your cylinders, AcuTrax will not only help you keep track of a very valuable asset so you can confidently bill for lost cylinders, it will also help you increase your rental income. In some cases, substantially. It is not uncommon for billable rent to be totally overlooked when tracking cylinders manually.

If you are continuously buying more cylinders, maybe you don’t need to. Are customers losing cylinders and not being billed for them? Are cylinders sitting idle on docks, in warehouses or at customer sites when they could be turned over and used, minimizing the need for new cylinders? Increasing cylinder turnover may help reduce the number of cylinders you need to purchase each year.

Are you able to budget properly for cylinder maintenance? In other words, how many cylinders need to be tested or refurbished this year? There is a cost associated with testing and without a good tracking system, it may become a guesstimate.

Do you sell hazardous chemicals? If so, when a cylinder shows up some place that it shouldn’t be, how can you prove that you shipped it to a distributor or consumer who was not responsible enough with the cylinder? If all you have is your name on the cylinder and no records to prove that a particular serial number was shipped to a distributor, you might be liable. With AcuTrax you can prove with the date, time, invoice number and even a signature when and who you shipped the cylinder to.

Do you sell medical gases? Do you have to keep track of lot numbers? AcuTrax gives you the capability to identify all cylinders in a given lot number in seconds and also shows you if the cylinders have been returned or are still with the patient.

What if you are the consumer? How do you know you are not being over billed for cylinder rental or loss of use? Hundreds or thousands of cylinders may be flowing into and out of your university or research lab each year. A good cylinder tracking system gives you the confidence of knowing that you are not being over billed for rent or paying for cylinders you did not lose. Also, identifying cylinders that need to be returned can significantly reduce rental bills.

Using state of the art handheld computers such as the PSION Workabout Pro and sophisticated tracking software, your dock workers, drivers or operators will be able to track every movement of each of your cylinders.

Handheld software with extensive error checking, developed by years of working closely with the people shipping and returning the cylinders, guides you through the entire process and warns you when you are about to make a mistake. AcuTrax can even warn you when someone returns a cylinder to you that you did not ship to them. Customers, clients and patients are properly credited for returns, disputes are eliminated and you have the peace of mind knowing that your cylinders are all properly accounted for.

Transponders Work Great In Harsh Environments

If your cylinders are often found in very harsh environments, the Trovan transponder may be the perfect solution for your tracking needs.

Transponders offer some unique advantages over bar codes. They can be painted over, covered with mud or grease and still perform their task properly. They can survive the harsh bead blasting process used to remove paint from cylinders. The Trovan transponder has the unique characteristic that allows it to perform better around metal than other transponders. Unlike bar codes, transponders are not all alike. Each transponder has unique strengths. The unique strength of the Trovan transponder is that it reads better around metal than any other transponder. Depending upon the type of container, Trovan even makes transponders that can be welded onto the asset making the attachment permanent regardless of how harsh the environment might be.

A Closed Loop System

A Closed Loop system means that every time the cylinder moves you scan it. And AcuTrax gives you the capability to do exactly that. With AcuTrax you can track cylinders:

• When they are on your dock either empty or full
• When you are filling them, including lot number tracking
• When they are at customer sites, including customers with multiple locations such as contractors
• When they are sent out for pressure testing or refurbishing
• When they are sold to your customers
• When they are discarded due to arc burns or other damage
• When your customer loses the cylinder and you bill them for the lost cylinder
• When they are on your truck, ship or common carrier.
• That are owned by your vendors

For reporting and queries, a transactional database is maintained showing every time a cylinder is scanned. This allows you to analyze the movement of a cylinder in great detail. You can answer questions such as:

• How many cylinders does a customer or patient have?
• How long have the cylinders been there?
• Where are all the cylinders in lot number 12345?
• What customers have cylinders that have not turned over in the last six months?
• How many cylinders need to be pressure tested next year?
• How many cylinders have you shipped to Customer A this year? This month?
• Where are all of your Oxygen cylinders?
• How many cylinders were discarded because of Arc Burns?
• How many cylinders were discarded because they failed the Pressure Test?
• How many cylinders are at each branch, warehouse or distributor?
• When was the last time you audited the cylinders at a Customer Site?

Customer Audits

To further insure accuracy, AcuTrax gives you the capability to perform customer audits. At the customer site, you will use the handheld computer to scan every cylinder that belongs to you. A permanent record of missing cylinders is maintained. Should a missing cylinder ever show up, (this might happen if another customer returns the cylinder) AcuTrax will let you know. Customer audits provide another way of insuring the accuracy of your cylinder records.

Regardless of why you need to track your cylinders or moveable assets, AcuTrax can help you solve the problem.

Have questions? Feel free to Send us an Email, we welcome the questions!