TIMS Software Initiatives for 2018
by David Schaer, President, Computers Unlimited
As we celebrate our 40th year in business serving the needs of welding supply and industrial gas distributors, we remain committed to our long-term philosophy that software is at its best when it integrates, simplifies, unifies, and streamlines a business. This year’s great lineup of new software features is a testament to that belief.
TIMS Smartphone Applications
The world has gone mobile and so has TIMS. The new suite of TIMS smartphone apps—TIMS Assistant, TIMS Delivery, TIMS Plant—are redefining the way business is done. You now have the ability to take TIMS with you with no expensive hardware. The new apps run on both iOS® and Android® smartphones and tablets using wi-fi or cellular connections.
- TIMS Assistant is the perfect mobile assistant for your entire sales team. It makes everyday sales tasks a breeze—from checking price and availability, creating mobile orders, reviewing customer account information, to capturing contacts, and creating Notes and Tasks for customers and prospects. TIMS Assistants' latest feature lets you process customer cylinder returns right at your dock. It's mobile service at the point of service.
- TIMS Delivery is the next generation of mobile computing for delivery drivers. TIMS Delivery provides both online and offline capabilities to meet the needs of a variety of operating environments. Create new orders on the fly or process existing orders downloaded from core TIMS. Capture important line-item details for packaged gases, bulk gases, hardgoods and rental items using a Bluetooth® barcode scanner, smartphone camera, or SIP keyboard. Record important delivery notes by voice. Capture additional information and pictures with integrated electronic forms you design. TIMS Delivery calculates customer item pricing, taxes and fees for each order, captures electronic signatures, processes mobile credit card payments, and emails proof of delivery and receipts over the air in real-time.
- TIMS Plant targets fill plant operations—from tagging new cylinder assets, verifying and updating barcoded cylinder information, cylinder filling, and location transfers, to truck load/unload/reconcile functions.
TIMS Bulk Gas Manager
TIMS now offers a fully integrated bulk gas module to manage bulk gases including propane, argon, CO2, helium, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, usage rates, forecasting methods, price management, and order processing and billing. In addition to traditional tank forecasting, TIMS Bulk Gas Manager can integrate with leading telemetry reading devices to capture actual tank levels to help schedule and forecast replenishment orders with greater accuracy. Lastly, simplify bulk gas deliveries with the new TIMS Delivery smartphone app to eliminate paper tickets, calculate product price, taxes and fee amounts, and accept mobile credit card payments at the point of delivery. TIMS Bulk Gas Manager—a complete solution for your bulk gas needs.
TIMS Cylinder Plant Production & Forecasting
We are excited to announce the development of a new software module for fill plant production operations. This module provides the ability to quickly review cylinder balances, cylinder demand, and stocking level requirements across the entire organization to determine how many cylinders to pump at any given time for any given gas item. It will incorporate new forecasting and replenishment formulas specially designed for cylinder usage and stock level requirements on a location-by-location basis as well as replenishment tools to help branch locations quickly review and place restocking orders. TIMS Cylinder Plant Production & Forecasting will be available at our annual Users Group meeting in September 2018.
TIMS Contract Campaign Manager
Managing thousands of price contract updates can be a daunting, time consuming, and labor-intensive endeavor. It requires close collaboration and planning between sales teams and management to forecast the financial impact of price contract changes and to then implement those changes in a timely and efficient manner. Before you know it, the process starts all over again with the next round of contract updates.
Based on feedback from TIMS users, Steering Committee members, and open forum discussions at our annual Users Group event, development of a new TIMS Contract Campaign Manager module is currently underway that will simplify the entire contract management process from beginning to end. The new module lets you create a targeted list of contracts to update, define a desired rate increase, forecast the financial impact of the rate increase, then send it on its way for management review and approval.
Stop by our booth for a closer look at our progress and learn how TIMS is simplifying and streamlining the complex world of contract price management. This new module will be available at our annual Users Group Conference this September 2018.
TIMS eCommerce
TIMS eCommerce continues to build out new features to achieve higher levels of customer service. Customers can now place bulk gas orders, choose a preferred delivery date, as well as review prior bulk delivery purchases (tank fill level percentages and quantity filled). New procurement lists are available to control which items a customer can buy based upon a buying list created and managed by you, a great feature to prevent ordering mistakes and speed up the ordering process. To help measure and monitor user web activity, new metrics are available to identify which eCommerce features get used the most by your customers. Finally, new web administrative tools are available to help simplify and streamline product image and content updates for a richer searching and buying experience.
TIMS eCommerce is a B2B platform designed specifically for welding supply and industrial gas distributors. It’s one stop shopping for your customers to place orders, create custom order lists, check price and availability, pay invoices with credit cards and inquire on A/R, orders, sales history, cylinder balances and transactions, and electronic proof of deliveries.
TIMS Routing & Logistics
TIMS now offers a real-time web API interface with leading routing and logistic systems to integrate, automate, and streamline ordering, routing and dispatching operations. Seamlessly synchronize from your office to the TIMS Delivery mobile app, to achieve new levels of dispatching efficiencies, route optimization, and driver productivity.
We look forward to visiting with you at GAWDA SMC in St. Louis, MO, May 6th - 8th, Booth #325, directly across the aisle from National Standard.
Best,
David Schaer
Published May 1, 2018 by David Schaer of Computers Unlimited. Date modified: February 1, 2024.
