Francine: It was probably about five years ago that our former VP of operations, since retired, was at one of the GAWDA events and he met up with the folks from Pulsa and was very impressed. When he came back, he ordered a bunch of Pulsa units so that he could test them, because he was very analytical. We put Pulsa on every unit regardless of any other telemetry that might be on there because we believe that much in the reporting and monitoring it provides.
"We put Pulsa on every unit regardless of any other telemetry that might be on there because we believe that much in the reporting and monitoring it provides."
Ryan: The three-minute readings and all the different alerts that you can set up, and the app on the phone is much more friendly. The interface is better and the customization and the functionality are just a lot more user-friendly. And Pulsa does offer a lot of other functions. We have a customer where we put in a 50-ton CO2 tank and a 1500-liter micro bulk tank. So actually I put in six sensors there, and they like it so much they are inquiring about temperature sensors for their freezer trailers for their dry ice. We're not their dry ice provider and we don't do anything with their freezers, but they asked if we could supply those for them. So now we’re branching out into another side of their business.
Jerry: Let’s take a dermatology institute as an example. They have their liquid nitrogen needs and it's very hard for them to understand at times, how much product is available. Some of these places can go for three weeks, some of them go for a week or less. The customer stated that they wanted automatic deliveries, but AGL doesn't do automatic deliveries; we're next business day service. So what we offered them was a Pulsa Light Scale. We told them we could monitor their liquid usage and dispatch a truck for refill when the cylinder is showing that it's near empty. That was a satisfactory solution. In fact, they have another location and are looking into purchasing a second one as well.
Jerry: It's a mixed bag. From what I've seen, it's probably a 60/40 split. Maybe a little bit higher on the side of “as long as I don't run out.” We do have some customers that inquire about being able to see it in real-time.
Francine: I think it depends on how interactive your customer is with their process. Do they care about levels or do they just want to not worry about ordering? Sometimes if you have some technical folks, they really like to look at the graphs and see what's going on. And then you have other people that just want to wash their hands of it and say I never have to worry about picking up the phone and calling you to place an order. So I'm in full agreement with Jerry. I think that it really is a mixed bag and I would say probably split right down the middle.
Ryan: I can say the biggest new growth that I've seen in the last five years is hydrogen, there's a lot more need in the industry for that. Your cannabis farms have become very popular. They take CO2 and nitrogen and they've been popping up left and right, at least in the Northeast. That's been a very large increase. I know the cryotherapy stuff has been big.
Jerry: That’s correct. Also, cryo saunas have been popping up over here in the Northeast, starting in the New Jersey area near Hoboken. I'm also seeing large-scale freezers that require CO2 cylinders as backup for storing biomedical samples. I'm seeing a lot of dental offices. They just keep coming and coming.
Jerry: For medical I find that it's pretty predictable. You have your nitrous oxide, CO2 and such. Sometimes they throw a little nitrogen in there. So you can always assume those gases come into play for dental offices. For the farms, the usage itself pertains to the processors, and they know what they're doing. They can predict consumption like it's nobody else's business and we're just seeing that pick up with them here in the Northeast.
Ryan: I would say when you get into the industrial side, that’s where you get some more of the unpredictable stuff. Like putting a lot of micro bulk tanks in currently at metal fabrication and laser customers. And those guys are strictly order-based. So some weeks they'll use just 20% of their tank and other days 60% of tank based on the orders, they received and what they're cutting. So that's where you can't really judge the forecast ability on any telemetry, whether it's Pulsa or any of the other guys out there -- those customers are very hard to forecast. Which I know Pulsa does; they're a lot more in-depth when it comes to algorithms for forecasting and abnormal usage and stuff. But for those kinds of work-to-order customers? Maybe one day someone will come up with algorithms that can help them predict when business is coming in! (Editorial note: thanks for the idea, Ryan!)
Keep reading about the value of Pulsa for gas distributors. Learn how WestAir is lowering operating costs and adding $1000 per location to their bottom line with Pulsa.