A modern gas station broken fuel pump with a Sorry Out of Service sign and lock.

Middletown, RI- UGH…..The dreaded Out of Order Nozzle Bag!

One of the toughest challenges of running a multi-store convenience or travel center chain can be related to keeping your fuel lanes running smoothly.  Often, fueling positions can go down without being promptly-reported to the corporate maintenance department or a 3rd-party repair company, if at all. In these busy and complicated Covid-19 times, priorities have changed and many companies are operating remotely or on thin crews, both in offices as well as the stores, making good communication even harder to accomplish.

A down fueling position can cost your company precious gallons and margin pretty quickly. We are all in a hurry as you well know. Customer frustration can grow when customers pull up to broken dispensers or see Out of Order signs frequently. This lack of proper maintenance can also negatively impact your company’s reputation. It only takes 1-2 poor experiences to send that customer down the road to your competitor, unfortunately. Many customers may not give you a second chance.

There are many factors that can cause a dispenser to go down:

  • Broken or defective nozzles
  • Stopped filters
  • Clogged or defective meters
  • Loss or interruption of power or connection to fuel controller
  • Fuel runouts
  • other electronic malfunctions

Today, many operators are reliant on the store manager or other attentive associates to report broken fueling positions. A manual process for the reporting of dispenser repair needs can carry many risks, however:

  • The manager does not recognize that a fueling position is not operating properly.
  • A fuel clerk does not follow the proper protocol for reporting the repair need to the store manager.
  • Your in-house maintenance department or 3rd-party repair company does not log the repair or deprioritizes your repair need.
  • The event happens on a weekend when limited support is available.
  • The repair is delayed due to occurring on a weekend and busy first-of-week repairs, that we all encounter, delays the repair.
  • And, the list can go on and on……

However, the worse-case scenario is when you simply do not find out a repair is needed.  Down fueling positions can dramatically decrease your profits and gallon throughput along with customer satisfaction levels. We would like to think that customers will simply go to a fuel lane that is working, but if you have a busy location or a limited number of dispensers, many customers will drive across the street to a competitor who they can better-trust to be operational.  The more bags a customers see, the more this possibility increases.

How can Warren Rogers help?  

We offer the ultimate in down fueling position and slow flow reporting via our real-time, 24/7 portal called fuelWRAp. fuelWRAp is viewable on desktop, tablet, and mobile. In an instant, you can see which fueling positions are dormant COMPANY-WIDE and for how long. No longer depend on the manual reporting of down fueling positions. On fuelWRAp, down fueling positions are ranked by the number of days dormant when no transactions have occurred at that fueling point. Maintenance departments can then view more granular detail in the application to see when the dispenser stopped performing and contact the store for additional confirmation. As an additional option, we can even send email reports to the field for GM review and investigation.

With Warren Rogers, you may realize that you really don’t need to buy more land, add more dispensers, perform costly upgrades, etc….You may just need to maintain your current equipment in a more-optimal and efficient fashion. Grow your throughput and keep your customers happy at the same time with fuelWRAp. We also offer a Procurement application to see inventory levels and receive runout alerts so you never run out of fuel again……..another common reason for those Out of Order nozzle bags and orange cones to go up!

How else can Warren Rogers help you?

Implementing improved system controls can greatly-increase efficiency in preventing fraud, abuse, or theft. With Warren Roger’s fuelWRAp Real-Time App, you can get:

  • *tighter fuel inventory control
  • *important equipment alerts
  • *detailed reports, and much more.
  • *interactive charts and graphs as well as historical data right to any of your devices
  • *dedicated account support of an expert fuel systems analyst team

See down fueling positions in real-time on the Warren Rogers’ fuelWRAp online portal, viewable on desktop, tablet, and mobile. fuelWRAp displays dormant fueling positions from 1 to 7 days in an easy-to-view interactive tool for easy monitoring. Easily link to more detail to view dispenser activity and transactions.

Real-time data can also be at your fingertips with the fuelWRAp app to allow you to see what’s going on in your fuel systems, including dispenser activity. We continuously track every drop of fuel and monitor every dispenser and line at your site while also collecting and analyzing an infinite amount of data. We also provide customized reports for your fuel team quickly and efficiently so that you can always stay informed. Learn more here.

Warren Rogers adds Alarm Management to their arsenal of capabilities and the online portal, called fuelWRAp.

About Warren Rogers Associates

Founded in 1979 by Dr. Warren Rogers, Warren Rogers Associates pioneered the development of Statistical Inventory Reconciliation Analysis (SIRA) as a means of monitoring underground fuel tanks and associated lines. Warren Rogers later invented Continual Reconciliation Analysis for fuel management and has been at the forefront of developments and enhancements to this technology.

Today, Warren Rogers specializes in statistical analysis and precision fuel system diagnostics for the retail petroleum industry. The Warren Rogers system is fully deployed in the cloud to provide customers with real-time access to fueling data anytime and anyplace. Recent initiatives include alarm management capabilities and the deployment of a secure procurement application for delivery forecasting and product dispatch, the development of KPI Measures of the financial impact of tank system maintenance activities, and advanced delivery audit. In addition, all Warren Rogers solutions are PCI compliant and eliminate any reliance upon the use of a customer’s VPN for access to store devices. Warren Rogers holds numerous U.S., European and Canadian patents for these applications. 

For more information, please visit www.warrenrogers.com and feel free to contact Tony Caputo, Director of Business Development, at tcaputo@warrenrogers.com, (M) 540-314-6210, for more information and scheduling a demonstration.