What is Gas Telemetry?
CO2Meter has always been an advocate for providing customers with innovative and up-to-date technology that allows the industry to become more data-driven, safe, and efficient. Gas telemetry is just one type of technology that uses sensors and software to allow businesses to track, measure and understand factors from consumption, inventory, and environmental conditions like temperature.
Gas telemetry systems offer numerous benefits to our industry, and CO2Meter is fortunate to work hand-in-hand with one of the leading telemetry providers, Pulsa.
Who is Pulsa Sensors?
Pulsa is known for their solutions that provide “real-time” or “high frequency” monitoring. This means that the Pulsa sensors send gas consumption measurement data to the Pulsa Dashboard hundreds of times per day, which comes with many benefits. Pulsa prides itself on its preciseness and reliability which is appreciated by gas distributors because it allows them to serve their customers better and to operate more efficiently– leading to higher profits.
One product that Pulsa offers is the Pulsa Link, which allows third party sensors to connect to the Pulsa system. Pulsa customers say that the Link is easier to install than any other solution in the market. All Pulsa sensors, including the Link, allow gas distributors and their customers to not only receive real-time measurements, but gain instant visualization of inventory consumption and historical records.
Due to these real-time readings, gas distributors are able to set meaningful, customized alerts in the Pulsa Dashboard to know if a tank is getting low or if there’s a potential leak. These features safeguard gas distributors and their customers, allowing them the ability to catch small problems before they turn into larger ones.
By adding the Pulsa Link to a tank, a third-party sensor is given a complete technology upgrade– i.e. now there are high frequency readings and alerts that can be set a The result is a greater peace of mind, higher efficiency, and one convenient interface for all metrics.
Benefits of Telemetry and CO2 Monitoring
With telemetry and CO2 monitoring combined, gas distributors can be rest assured knowing that they have a system that allows them to work at peak efficiency, and know for certain that their customers are safe. Today, many gas distribution partners like MacCarb and Kint Beverage are using Pulsa Link paired with CO2Meter's monitoring integration to gain major advantages in the workplace.
Here are just some of the key advantages:
- Enhanced Safety: When a gas distributor is using the Pulsa platform to measure gas consumption and temperature levels, it makes sense to easily add Pulsa Link and CO2Meter’s monitoring solutions. By continuously monitoring CO2 levels, gas suppliers, distributors, and customers can ensure that they stay within safe limits. This is particularly important in environments where high concentrations of CO2 can pose health risks or create hazardous conditions. Early detection of abnormal CO2 levels can be caught due to the fact that Pulsa provides “real-time” readings— hundreds of times person day. This allows for timely interventions and is the best way to prevent potential accidents or incidents.
- Improved Efficiency and Resource Management: Pulsa has a range of products that allow gas distributors to monitor and manage gas consumption and temperature remotely. All products send real-time readings to the Pulsa Dashboard allowing distributors to troubleshoot more issues remotely, easily understand consumption patterns, and identify inefficiencies. By analyzing consumption data, distributors detect leaks or wastage, and implement strategies to minimize losses. They are also optimizing operations which means only filling tanks when needed. When milk runs are reduced and emergency fills are eliminated, there is cost savings due to less fuel, truck wear and tear, overtime pay, and more. The improvement in overall operational efficiency adds up. Pulsa claims that their customers save $1000 per location per year. When gas distributors do the math, it is a significant savings.
- Remote Monitoring and Control: Customers can gain remote monitoring and control of gas distribution networks. Operators can access real-time data and receive alerts or notifications about critical parameters. This capability allows for remote troubleshooting, rapid response to emergencies, and more efficient management of gas distribution networks. It reduces the need for manual on-site inspections and enables operators to make informed decisions without physically visiting each location.
- Compliance Monitoring and Reporting: The Pula system paired with CO2Meter's CO2 Safety Monitor can aid in compliance monitoring with regulatory requirements and industry standards. For the se systems can aid in compliance monitoring with regulatory requirements and industry standards. For the restaurant, beverage, and hospitality industries, there are certain regulations and standards surrounding CO2 safety monitoring. By continuously monitoring CO2 atmospheric levels in the Pulsa Dashboard along with their gas consumption, distributors can ensure adherence to safety and environmental regulations. The collected data can also be used for reporting purposes, providing evidence of compliance, and facilitating regulatory audits.
Overall, telemetry solutions can monitor gas consumption and CO2 atmospheric levels, providing gas distributors with valuable data, insights, and control over their gas supply and operations. These technologies enhance safety, improve efficiency, facilitate proactive maintenance, enable remote management, and support compliance with regulations.
By leveraging telemetry and CO2 monitoring, gas distributors can optimize their processes, minimize risks, reduce costs and deliver reliable services to their customers.
An Interview with Sam Fatoohi, Pulsa Sensors
The team at CO2Meter, was fortunate to be able to speak with Sam Fatoohi, Pulsa's Head of Business Development and Growth on the topic of CO2 safety and telemetry solutions. Sam has continued to serve as a partner for CO2Meter and is someone who is well-respected throughout the industry.
Sam provides valuable industry perspective on the commonality between both Pulsa and CO2Meter which is gas safety in the industry.
The following is an interview segment with CO2Meter's VP of Marketing, Morgan Morris and Sam Fatoohi: who is the Head of Business Development & Growth for Pulsa.
CO2Meter: Sam, to start off our CO2 safety segment could you give us a little more insight to Pulsa and your role?
Sam: "Absolutely. First, thank you for inviting me to speak on the topic at hand. For those that do not know, Pulsa is a company that develops hardware and software solutions that would fall into the high frequency telemetry category."
"This means that we develop sensors that take in readings every few minutes of a tank or a cylinder or other environmental variables. And we also provide a software solution that allows our customers to monitor and use that data provided to manage things like deliveries, analyze trends, and also gain an alert when they need to act on a particular tank or other asset."
"The telemetry category actually has been historically focused on a subset of assets or gases, which include bulk industrial gases and chemicals, and some specific gas types like propane. But our vision for telemetry is using sensors to monitor everything. You know, from both tanks to small cylinders and hard goods to environmental variables, like temperature and CO2 parts per million."
"My role as the head of sales and growth is to lead our sales team, our support function and some other internal operations at Pulsa. I'm also heavily involved in other various growth initiatives where we look at new opportunities to position our product for new industries and business models."
CO2Meter: Sam, thank you so much for that background. I know from what I have seen personally the business is truly continuing to grow at a rapid pace within the market. You are always positioning the company strongly at industry events, providing beneficial resources and rolling out great campaigns for your solutions."
"Could you tell us a little more about your background and your training, really how you got to where you are today with Pulsa?"
Sam: ”Yeah, definitely. So, prior to joining Pulsa, I worked as a software engineer for a good chunk of time and then most recently before that worked in management consulting. In my time as a management consultant, I spent a lot of time with companies on sales and marketing teams, to bring high tech offerings to physical industries. And I worked a lot in manufacturing, high tech, automotive, aerospace and defense areas. The one thing I really appreciated was the strong business case of leveraging high tech, you know, new technology, sensors, and software.”
"These technologies were in various applications and physical industries. And so there was a big opportunity to mix some of the innovations that we have in Silicon Valley with some of what we call physical industries, like gas distribution, manufacturing, things like that."
"As of about 5 years ago, Pulsa had a product, had sensors, had software, but no market. I was asked by the CEO, who's a good friend of mine, his name is Dave, if I could come on board and take the product that's been built already and create a business out of it. So, I was tasked with selling and supporting the product, communicating the value prop of the product in the field. And, you know, at that point, I took the baton and have never looked back."
CO2Meter: "It looks like the tech-space has always followed you. That really gives background to how it all started and your role there. Let's talk a little more if we could however on Pulsa's solution. As you mentioned, your product line to date is continuing to expand and serving multiple industries providing efficiency, productivity, and profit."
"Could you walk us through some of the initial successes or challenges you've seen in the market so far?"
Sam: "One thing to note is that every customer we have today initially said no. As I mentioned earlier, telemetry has historically been used mostly for bulk gases and that type of technology (bulk telemetry) has been in the market for decades. Most of our customers’ claims were that they were happy with what they were doing for bulk telemetry and really weren't interested in investing in a startup. And, when it came to monitoring the non-bulk assets or other environmental assets or variables, which are typically not monitored, we were asking our customers who are all primarily gas distributors, who run wildly profitable enterprises, to really change their operating model based on our product."
"So, in order to win the bulk business, we had to convince our customers that we had built the best mousetrap in order to start measuring other assets. We had to push very successful companies to adjust their operating model around their offering. So, we had an initial challenge there. The way that we attacked it was our strategy to get the product in our customers’ hands. First, because we were confident that once people saw what we had built and learned how to use it - they would be much more interested in discussing the business case."
"What we found was that the early adopters were really kind of a mix of different people. Some were industry veterans who had tried to build a similar offering or had been looking for an offering like what we had built. Other folks we found might be new to the industry, but really wanted to build their business with much more predictability."
"As you know, we are also a very connected industry, right? As you mentioned networking and connecting with these partners at trade shows. You talk to one person who has a business based in like North Carolina, who's best buddies with somebody who works out of Montana. And for us, once we were able to get some success stories, the word just began to spread."
"It's a lot easier to have somebody call you and say, Hey, I heard you did a very good job for these guys, they are seeing huge benefits, rather than us trying to explain, why our solutions would be a great fit for them."
"To date, we are working with a little over 150 different industrial beverage distribution companies, primarily based in North America and continuing to expand more than ever before."
CO2Meter: "I don't believe you could have said that any better in terms of our community and industry. A lot of times it is word of mouth and building that trust within the industry to gain some great success stories and connections."
"Sam, you did mention gas distribution, which is a large market for us as well, these customers of course are widely distributing gases like for instance, CO2. Which brings me to the topic of gas safety and your solutions."
"I know you all are continuing to test and integrate your solutions with our CO2 safety monitoring so that the customers can actually see the ppm readings in the dashboard, as well."
"Where do you see this safety perspective the most valuable, is it gas distributors or the end user market in your opinion?"
Sam: "You know, I would say it’s probably the end user. And the reason I say that is I think it's going to be your forward-thinking company, because the gas distributor, will have some value to provide additional value in the offering, but the end user would see a lot more value here in my opinion."
"For the gas distributor they basically are reselling the product, where I see the end user sees a lot more value and they don't want to run into any issues on site. With CO2 monitoring solutions, it really allows you to use our products tied together, to catch small problems before they become big problems. rom the CO2 metering solutions standpoint, you can gain access to visual and audible alarms that can be related to relevant parties and trigger areas such as a fire control panel to signal to the fire department and so forth."
"Where our solutions come together, though, is that it provides that real time peace of mind. So that let's say you have a friend, being able to manage 15 franchises from a smartphone gives them a true visual on everything from CO2 parts per million, to their inventory levels, to creating alarms, to creating specific triggers - everything is there."
"In addition, let's say CO2 concentrations are rising faster than a particular threshold, then this could be an indicator of a leak or something else that may become a bigger problem. Or let's say it's at a sub threshold, right? Like, you don't need to alarm anybody there. It's completely safe. But why is it that high?"
"And so, you can be concerned enough and try troubleshooting things before they become bigger problems, because as we know, safety is key here and catching smaller problems before they become catastrophic issues could be the difference between a routine service call or having to shut down your business for hours, if not longer."
"To circle back to your answer your question. I do think the end customer or the end user has a lot of value, but as you know, the distributor and end customers often have the same incentives and values, so distributors often are heavily vested in the success of their end customer, and so in that case, there's a lot of value for the distributor to provide more value to their customer to a single dashboard to monitor all of their assets at once, and yet the end customer is the one that probably will be more actively looking at this solution."
CO2Meter: Sam, I believe you really positioned the value add from both customer perspectives and that was perfectly said. Just having the safeguards in place to mitigate those small hazards before they become catastrophic is huge; however being able to manage multiple assets like CO2 safety monitoring, inventory levels, and combined areas - is really providing customers with a true all-in-one solution."
"I'm curious however about industry and I know you all are largely focused into beverage. Like you mentioned before, your sensors provide instant data to monitor beverage gases. So since we are talking about CO2 safety and technology, what other solutions or ideas would your recommend in order to mitigate hazards for your customers in this market?"
Sam: "So, of course, CO2 ppm monitoring is critical, and CO2Meter, makes a fantastic product for that to monitor your CO2 levels and one of the big safety benefits of this combined solution with Pulsa sensors, is really also reducing the need for extra deliveries and stops and providing the users the ability to troubleshoot issues remotely.”
"Rather than having to send out a technician or dump gas unnecessarily, issues can be diagnosed remotely and stops can be reduced. And as we know, we're talking about safety on site, but the fewer miles a distributor or installer is using and driving to manage their end customer or an end customer is driving to diagnose issues, you know, you're off the road."
"And of course, a lot of problems happen when you're on the road. So, getting people off the road is a big thing that you can do with our solutions together."
"Switching gears on other solutions that can be used in the safety space. I think a lot of problems may happen because of leaks and because of, you know, not monitoring things closely. Often the end user gas is critical to their operation, but it's one of the 50 things that are critical to the hundreds of things that are critical to their operation. So, they may not be as well-versed in how to manage regulators, how to manage valves, or how to keep things open and closed when they need to do certain things and what needs to be open, or what needs to be closed."
"One product I think that's very good is, especially in cylinder deployments, is a manifold. Where a distributor can deploy a manifold, or an end customer could purchase a manifold. And then the distributor when they're going and delivering the gas is basically there. They're the ones that are responsible for setting things up."
"These delivery drivers set up hundreds of cylinders a day. They're very well versed on what needs to be opened/closed. They don't put the responsibility on the end customer or the end user. I really think a manifold type of solution often automatically switches over back and forth. These can also save a lot of pain and damage or concern rather than asking people to swap out cylinders."
CO2Meter: "That really provides some great insight into other solutions that can assist when it comes to safety in the field. Thank you for providing so much industry perspective and background for us to take home and implement. I know we talked a lot about industries, solutions, and safety in the workplace. Showing, that gas is such a vital component in the operation for both gas distributors and end users in our industry but there can always be a potential hazard so having the right solutions is critical."
Sam: "Absolutely, Morgan. It's been a pleasure. I try to make myself available on all platforms as much as possible. So, if anyone would like to send me a message directly on LinkedIn you can reach me there or visit the website PulsaSensors.com to gain more information."
CO2Meter: "Excellent. Thank you for the resources, Sam and thank for taking time out to speak with me today on gas safety and technologies in our industry. Especially, from a great partner like yourself."
Sam: Thank you, Morgan. I really appreciate the partnership with CO2Meter as well and for the great questions and invitation. Talk soon!
CO2Meter would like to give a huge thanks to Sam and the team at Pulsa for providing such tremendous insight to the use of telemetry solutions and software combined with CO2 safety to provide such benefits for leaders in our field.
We could not be more proud of the relationships we continue to build with individuals across the globe and industry partners in order to further provide solutions that create a safer workplace for us all.
If you are interested in also learning more on CO2 safety solutions or the Pulsa/CO2 Safety integration, please email us today at Sales@CO2Meter.com or visit our website.