Liquid petroleum gas customers will be able to monitor their usage

Calor Gas is embarking on a Web 2.0 implementation to improve service to its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) customers.

LPG accounts for about half the company’s business, and is supplied mainly to customers with telemetry units that measure the gas in their tanks.

At the moment, the telemetry data is used to schedule deliveries. Calor’s web services project will also make it available to customers, so they can see their gas use patterns. Customers will be able to view past readings via an online account.

The project will test how robustly web services can perform in a production environment, said Calor Gas head of development Simon Went.

“We are inching our way towards web services, but it will be business-driven,”
he said.

In preparation for the project, Calor is upgrading its JD Edwards enterprise resource planning system and its Onyx customer relationship management system to web-enabled versions.

“Our business is seasonal. The winter period from October to March is busy, so we are targeting spring 2009,” said Went.