Over the past three decades, Guljag Industries has become one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of chemicals and gases in India.
The business supplies consumers with industrial and medical grade cylinders and specializes in trading, transportation, and the manufacture of products including Sodium Metabisulphite, Sulfamic Acid, Di Methyl Sulfate, Chloro Sulphonic Acid, and water treatment chemicals.
In addition, Guljag Industries also provides customized solutions that can be tailored to suit specific customer needs and requirements. Its customers include industrial, medical, metal cutting and welding, and machinery part manufacturers.
Headquartered in Mumbai, India, most of its 25-strong team operate from state-of-the-art facilities in Jodhpur, Rajasthan and nearby Ajmer.
The business owns around 14,000 cylinders, half of which – around 6,000 cylinders – are currently monitored using TrackAbout software. Such has been its success that Guljag Industries is planning to extend its coverage to its remaining 8,000 cylinders during a second phase of implementation next year.
Guljag Industries prides itself on providing excellent customer service, working directly with customers to ensure they receive the right products as, and when, they need them. To help meet customer expectations, the business relies on asset tracking software to track and manage its cylinders via their serial numbers – something Mudit Dhoot, Director of Guljag Industries Limited, says is fairly unique in India given the complexities involved and software requirements.
TrackAbout gives Guljag Industries a real advantage and helps it stay ahead of its competitors, he says.
“We like to track our cylinders by their actual serial numbers. A lot of people in the country do not do that because of software restrictions, but this is where TrackAbout helped me quite a lot,” he says. “With TrackAbout, I can individually identify which cylinder I have given to a customer and when I’ve received it back – and based on that, I can charge rent also.”
For many years, Guljag Industries used its own in-house software department to develop tools to meet the company’s needs and help manage its deliveries. Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to roll out updates regularly enough to keep pace with the changing marketplace requirements and the latest regulations. The lengthy time lag meant the business was often running on an old script and mistakes would creep into the system.
Serial numbers were being noted down on a piece of paper and digits could be written down incorrectly or misread – and this caused all kinds of problems, says Dhoot.
“If the cylinder number does not match, if it was not showing in that account, then there's a lot of hassle,” says Dhoot. “The bill would not be generated. The return will not be generated. We’d have to find out individually which cylinder was causing the problem.”
Thanks to TrackAbout, the situation significantly improved, he says. “It has completely removed human error – not reduced but removed human error.”
Before TrackAbout, billing time would take an average of 30-40 minutes for a 50-cylinder load. “It’s saved me a lot of time,” he says. “Today, it takes me 10 minutes.”
Dhoot researched several software vendors before deciding TrackAbout provided the perfect solution. His decision was made even easier as he was able to draw on personal experience with his own in-house software development team, he says.
“Since I had a software company in my own group of companies, I could see their restrictions. I could see what they could deliver and what they could not deliver,” he adds. “I wanted something reliable, something with quality, and TrackAbout had already established a good name in the international markets. TrackAbout has a specialty for doing this, literally this job, so I went straight for this.”
TrackAbout’s solution quickly transformed the business and improved workflows, insists Dhoot, making it far easier to manage assets and providing the necessary insight to increase productivity. The result was reduced human error and improved efficiency.
“The biggest thing is time savings, hands down. It saves so much time,” says Dhoot. “My team is able to do more, function more. Initially, because I did not have TrackAbout, during a particular shift, I used to have to keep two dispatch people. Today, I only need one.”
Dhoot particularly likes that the software boasts advanced tracking features and stock-keeping capabilities that help the business accurately monitor its cylinders across multiple customer locations. Cloud-based updates also ensure TrackAbout is always up-to-date and reliable – a great improvement over other software, he says, which routinely had to be patched manually to ensure everything worked smoothly.
TrackAbout’s Alerts feature is another huge benefit, he adds, which allows him to stay informed about whether assets are laying idle and need to be brought back into circulation.
“I've customized an alert where it sends me a notification about cylinders lying above 120 days with a particular customer. I get that alert on a daily basis, so I know which cylinder is stuck,” he says. “We go to the customer and follow up accordingly, or raise an invoice for the whole cylinder itself, consider it lost, and settle accounts.”
Geotagging has also proven a useful feature, with location data captured every time an item is scanned. This, he says, makes it possible to verify that the right cylinders always end up with the right customers at the right time.
TrackAbout’s rental module, although not currently used by Guljag Industries, is seen as another great opportunity for the future and demonstrates how the software’s breadth of features and modules can help meet the changing needs of the business.
The level of support and assistance from TrackAbout during the software implementation process was stellar throughout, says Dhoot. Although he admits the learning curve was a little steep during the first few months, with his team initially hesitant about the changes.
“To be completely transparent, my first two or three months with TrackAbout were a learning curve – not TrackAbout's fault; it was actually the whole team understanding the whole system,” says Dhoot. “They don't like change. They did not understand the vision behind it – though now they're very thankful.”
The TrackAbout team was on hand to help, with an implementation specialist on site to train Guljag Industries’ team and get everything up and running quickly.
“TrackAbout provided complete support. They had a person at our site for 7-10 days on a stretch, training my entire team for me,” says Dhoot. “I did not even have to step into the plant; it was all done by TrackAbout. They gave us different options, they gave us different scenarios, they gave us different implementation techniques, and we followed accordingly.”
The software has been a game-changer for Guljag Industries, says Dhoot. So much so that the cost savings achieved because of TrackAbout mean the business is now able to reinvest additional resources into the business towards customer acquisition.
Anyone considering TrackAbout as their asset management solution is making a sensible investment, he insists.
“The thing is, we are so accurate with this now, the customers are very impressed – and they prefer me as their supplier,” he says. “They've had incidents where cylinders have been misplaced on their end, or maybe the suppliers’ end, and those disputes have risen up. With us, there are zero disputes.”