YPF
» The Scenario
Repsol YPF is the largest producer in Argentina of LPG, which is commercialized through Repsol YPF Gas, both packaged and in bulk, on the domestic, commercial and industrial markets, with a market share of 34%.
The distribution in bulk is done by a fleet of more than 120 trucks and 15 shipments plants, attending the demand of over 80,000 tanks distributed on the installations of around
50,000 customers all over the country.
» The challenge
Just before being depleted of LPG, each one of these more than 50,000 customers spread all over the country, must be resupplied of it, by any of the trucks and, at that same time, get the invoice and the receipt of the corresponding LPG load received.How is it possible to get that the LPG volume invoiced to each customer coincides with the actual amount delivered and, at the end of the day, adds up to the total volume missing fromthe tank truck?
» The solution
Each one of the more than 120 trucks delivering LPG in bulk to 50,000 customers, carries a Hand Held with Windows Mobile, that is connected to the mass flow meter serial port of the tank truck, through an application developed and implemented by Softron’s professionals. This application records, for each customer, the LPG’s volume delivered and issues the invoice and the corresponding receipt, which are printed on a portable printer and handed to the customer. At the same time, this operation is transmitted online to an operations center at Repsol YPF Gas.BBVA
» The context
BBVA is one of the most important global financial groups, present in more than 30 countries and with 42 million customers. In Argentina it is the majority shareholder at Banco Francés, a financial institution with a long history that covers the whole country through 232 retail branches and other 27 branches specialized on small and medium size enterprises.
In 2006 the Group launched the Galaxia Project, as part of the BBVA Banco Francés branch system consolidation process, whose main objective was to provide all branches with a thin client solution based on Linux. This ambitious plan should cover every informatics requirement of the branches, without relying on the software installed on the local PCs.
» The challenge
When assessing the applications being used at the branches, several problems appeared that were solved with standard technologies. However, an application being used for the enterprises credit risk evaluation presented additional difficulties:
- The application used components that run only under Windows, and therefore were not compatible with the new architecture.
- Galaxia already existed at the branches but the system has not yet been migrated. The contingency alternative
- consisted on using Terminal Server’s remote connections to the application server, which in turn was already saturated due to the large number of branches that used it.
- The users strongly depended on this application, as it allowed them to simulate different scenarios through balance
- projections. These simulations were key for showing the repayment capability of the bank’s corporate clients.
- Data input as well as scenario simulation should have the simplicity and flexibility of a data sheet but at the same time
- maintaining the new architecture set up by the Galaxia project.
- As the application was also being used by staff of the central areas, who would continue using Windows as operating system, the compatibility of both platforms should be kept.
In order to overcome these obstacles, BBVA Banco Francés hired Softron Argentina for performing a complete review of the application as well as adapting it for being used under the new scenario.
» The solution
A team of Softron’s consultants and programmers together with analysts from BBVA Banco Francés was set up to solve the problem. As a first step the incompatible components were identified and those less complex were ported to Java, so that the application could run on a Firefox browser under Linux.
In order to overcome the main obstacle which consisted in replacing the simulation component, Softron integrated Actuate’s eSpreadsheet Engine, a software package that provides the same functionality as MS Excel but within a web application.
» The results
The application was delivered with great success to the branches, in Southern Hemisphere’s spring of 2007. Terminal Server was no longer used for running the old version and the users at all branches in the country started running the new version on Firefox, the standard browser on the Galaxia environment. Thanks to eSpreadsheet Engine and its integration on the existing web application, users are able to simulate different economic scenarios with the knowledge already acquired, and complying at the same time with corporate standards.
As a result of the success of the migration, other companies of the BBVA Group analized its advantages and, in March 2008 started a project for adapting it to two other related companies.
Softron Argentina is currently providing BBVA Banco Francés a maintenance service of the application, in order to keep it updated with the day to day business and technology changes.
SubirCammesa
» The problem
On a growing electric energy demand, close to its full capacity, CAMMESA, the public company responsible for the administration of the wholesale electric market in Argentina, decided improving the administration by closely monitory the demand. In order to measure precisely the requirements of the largest energy consumers, CAMMESA set up the SMED System.
» The challenge
The SMED System, that covers the largest consumers, must capture the accumulated demand over 15 minutes intervals and transmit it synchronized for all demand sites, within the next 3 minutes, in order to obtain the complete demand “picture” at any point in time. The measurement of some sites but not all or the delay in the reception of the demand data, adds difficulty to decision making.
» The solution
CAMMESA assigned Softron more than 600 measurement points in the provinces of Córdoba, Tucumán, Santiago del Estero, Chaco and Formosa. At each measurement point there is a meter that generates pulses proportionally to the consumption. The meters are connected to data acquisition equipment that accumulate the pulses received and
transmit the total accumulated every 15 minutes. The information related to the consumption of the measurement points is received and processed at our Center of Acquisition that operates 24 x 7 with a reliability higher than 99.99%.
The acquisition equipment is based on ourFlamenco Green Box. On most of the points cellular phone networks are used for transmitting data. However, where cellular coverage is poor, satellite stations are used for transmitting the information.
Most of the acquisition equipment had to be installed on very unfavorable physical and climatic environments. For that reason the electronic is protected from external agents inside a normalized box adequately design in order to be assembled rapidly and easily maintened. The acquisition equipment contains, among other elements, power source, LED status indicators, sensors and a backup battery that provides more than 48 hours of autonomy. The alarms allow our
operators to react immediately to different events.
In order to ensure an excellent performance of the system, an efficient field maintenance service was set up that works proactively and quickly solves any malfunctioning.
Softron’s team worked hardly during several months on a solution that provides satisfactory answers to the challenges encountered. The delivery on the field of the acquisition equipments took several months, during which problems were solved, from installing external antennas (some even longer than 50 meters) for improving the level of the GPRS signal up
to attending vibration issues.
AC Nielsen y EasyForms
» The requirement
AC Nielsen is a global company providing its customers with market information in the countries where it is present. In order to gather the information AC Nielsen deploys surveyors on the sales points.
The traditional data capture using printed forms, takes so much time developing and performing the Surrey that frequently results are not timely.
» The challenge
Reduce the period of time from the moment the client identifies the information need, the information is captured on the field, and finally is made available to the client to facilitate an adequate decision making.
» The solution
AC Nielsen choose licensing EasyForms, a software product developed by Moviltek that, with no programming at all, allows to generate electronic forms for data capture easily and rapidly. Its power and flexibility make possible to have the electronic forms in a short time, even when data capture requirements are very complex.
EasyForms runs under Windows, Windows Mobile and Blackberry on both fixed and mobile devices that support those operating systems.
By using EasyForms, AC Nielsen was able to generate electronic forms that are delivered to the surveyors in the field, in a very short time. It is not longer necessary that the surveyors move to the central office to get the information of new products to survey and the corresponding forms to use.
It is thus possible to reduce the idle time of the surveyors as well as having available the data captured on the central server, in a very short time, resulting in a superior service to the clients.
EasyForms is so powerful that it allows developing highly complex forms. It supports from the simple input of figures or text up to complex questions with either recursive captures or conditioned to values previously input. It is also possible reading bar codes, taking pictures, geographically referencing the information, displaying the route followed by the surveyor and much more.
The EasyForms solution allows AC Nielsen deliver on time the information to its clients for them to be able react to the market dynamics under crisis.
CNA and EasyForms
» The Situation
The labor risk insurer CNA A.R.T. is a multinational organization focused on small and medium enterprises. It specializes on the protection of workers from varied industries.
Advising its customers is key to CNA, and this directly influences the quantity and cost of the accidents, which in turn determines the Profit and Loss Statement and the relation with the insured persons. Customer advising is performed by inspectors who visit them in order to assess, record and evaluate the various variables on which the risk depends.
» The challenge
In order to achieve an excellent service at an acceptable cost, CNA A.R.T. required to automate the task of its inspectors as well as integrating it with data processing. The main obstacle consisted on the large number of forms to be filled manually and later on transcribed or digitalized for being electronically processed.
» The solution
To solve this problem CNA A.R.T. licensed EasyForms, Moviltek’s software product that allows the rapid generation of electronic forms for data capture, without having to do any programming.
Using Easy Forms, Softron’s consultants developed for CNA hundreds of forms they use for the administration of the risk.
At present CNA, uses these forms on mobile devices that operate under the Windows Mobile operating system.
EasyForms features far exceed the simple form generation for electronic data capture. It also produces output documents on standard formats like MS Word or PDF, ready for being electronically processed and stored, thus avoiding troublesome manipulations for its transcription and manipulation through scanning, so speeding up getting results at lower cost.
Through EasyForms, CNA was able to rapidly integrate its inspectors to the automated data processing, with a modest technology investment.
SubirMinisterio de Salud - Uruguay
» The problem
The Institute of Hygiene of Uruguay’s Ministry of Public Health has as a mission the conservation of biological samples sensible for human health as well as performing studies and cultivations. With this purpose it is equipped with dozens of refrigerators and freezers, which must be kept under strict temperature ranges, to avoid damage to the material. For biological cultivations, they also use several stoves, where temperature is a key variable that has to be strictly controlled and recorded, in order to ensure reliable results. They also use stoves and autoclaves for the sterilization of materials. The equipment is distributed over several stories in different laboratories.» The challenge
Replacing the manual registration of temperatures, which is difficult and unreliable, by an automatic and continuous recording. The preservation of the information must be secured; the remote access must be allowed for supervision purpose, and it must be ensured the issuing of alarms in case temperature values move outside accepted ranges, requiring human intervention to make corrections.» The solution
CONTROLTEK proposed a solution based on installing adequate temperature sensors on each piece of equipment. The ranges of temperature and the precision of each sensor are selected according to the requirement of the equipment on which it will be installed.
As the different equipments are relatively close o each other, it was decided to cable the labs with a simple and single telephone pair. This is cheap and adequate for signals based on “1-wire” technology, which is the one used by most of the sensors. The “1-wire” sensors are serially connected over the telephone pair. The sensors of the pieces of equipment which are close to each other are grouped on a concentrator. Each concentrator is connected to a FLAMENCO GREEN BOX (FGB) acquisition equipment.
There are a small number of sensors that must comply with stricter conditions (temperature range, extreme 
temperatures and precision), which utilize Ethernet signals for communication. These sensors are connected through Ethernet cables, directly to a FGB device. The FLAMENCO GREEN BOX devices transmit the information captured to a server via Ethernet. Our MeterManager software, which is installed at the Institute’s offices on a simple PC, stores the temperature readings, and allows to visualize and export them on compatible formats (PDF, Excel, flat files, CSV, etc.), for further utilization by other applications. Ii is possible to visualize the readings by just having the corresponding permits and a browser connected to the Institute’s internal network.
In the presence of deviations outside given ranges, which are parameterized for each piece of equipment, MeterManager sends alarms to warn those with a responsibility. The alarms could be sent by electronic mail, SMS or mobile phones.
Tenaris
From its Siderca plant in the city of Campana, Buenos Aires province, Tenaris has been for more than 50 years an important player in the development of the petroleum and gas market in Argentina.Nowadays the plant has the more advanced technology, being considered one of the world’s more efficient and integrated of its type. It is capable of producing more than 900,000 tons of steel seamless pipes as well as a wide range of products for the energy, automotive, and agro industry markets, exporting around 70% of its high added valued products.
Tenaris also produces steel pipes with seams at its plants in Valentín Alsina, Buenos Aires province and Villa Constitución, Santa Fe province, with a total annual produce of 430,000 tons. It also has plants in Villa Mercedes, San Luis province, producing pumping rods and accessories for pipes.
In 2008 and in order to implement a centralized printing and document management solution, Tenaris opted for what both LRS and Softron had to offer. Using the VPSX product Tenaris centralized under a single administration interface, more than 600 printers scattered all over the world. VPSX also made possible replacing the existing printing solution, without affecting or having to modify the business applications. The integration capabilities of VPSX through technologies like webservices, ActiveDirectory and SNMP, made possible its integration to the Tenaris network as well as to various applications, maintaining the required security and strength. If unforeseen problems occur at printing, from a simple browser users could reroute the documents, thus increasing the business capabilities and reducing the operating costs.
Finally, VPSX’s output capabilities have made possible printing on PDF format, sending to an email box and charging to a printing account.
