WLPGA Member Focus – Athelia Solutions
Athelia is dedicated to the application of innovative technologies in the transformation of industrial processes, increasing the performance of mobile assets and connecting mobile workers. The Athelia solutions help various industrial clients to improve and transform their operations and business models, creating interactions with their customers and partners within their value chain. Athelia was founded in 2002 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Air Liquide Group.
Athelia believes that the industrial era has given way to the information age, so it is no longer about the biggest factory, but rather about having visibility in real time and having relevant information available.
Athelia’s solutions revolve around three main pillars:
- Internet of Things: Electronic identification and machine-2- machine communications, turning equipment and assets into Smart elements
- Personal connectivity: Connecting Workers and business stakeholders to real time information
- Data Analytics: Turning data into information and information into actionable business wisdom
What are the Solutions?
Athelia Solutions offers a number of solutions for the LPG market, such as Tank inspection and maintenance management, Bulk distribution and cylinder tracking and distribution.
The LPG market, being a mature industry is not immune to the digital innovation going on in many other sectors these days. The appearance of technologies such as Smartphones and the Internet of Things are creating disruptions in many markets through the application of digital technologies to, what have been for decades, mature and consolidated value chains.
Our industry, being tough in terms of safety and quality standards in comparison to others, and sometimes heavily regulated in different geographies, has kept certain level of isolation from the adoption of digital technologies. There are good reasons for that, the first being the skills and know-how necessary to bridge the gap between the application of these new technologies and the requirements of the industry in terms of safety and regulations.
Athelia have succeeded in bridging that gap, bringing the most advanced technologies to the LPG industry the way the industry can safely absorb them and make the most of it. A good example is Athelia’s GASFLOW solution, a cylinder tracking and distribution solution that could be compared to the ERP of the LPG distribution business. This solution identifies the cylinders uniquely through RFID and automates all different processes of the supply chain, from the filling carrousel to the end consumer. Providing not only the highest quality standards by automating tare weight control and maintenance sorting in the production lines, as well as an efficient paper-less distribution process, but also giving distribution businesses an unseen level of visibility on the assets utilisation and market behavior.
The digitisation of the LPG supply chain requires not only having access to the technologies, but having a deep understanding or their impacts in the sector and the appropriate know-how for its application on the ground. Athelia’s vision is to merge both sides and become true partners for our clients in the journey of transforming their supply chains into digital supply chains.
“We have been providing these type of solutions for 15 years now and we have become really good at it. Our solutions give a number of efficiencies to our clients businesses mainly related to the automation of manual processes and the digitisation of supply chain into totally paper-less and error-free process, connecting effortlessly all stakeholders in the value chain.
But what really drives our vision today is how our technology is helping our clients to deeply transform their businesses inside-out, how thanks to asset identification and tracking we can move to a total visibility of the assets and the market, from a XXth century segmentation approach to a XXIst centery approach where we can talk to consumers directly“.
Conversión Magro
Managing Director, Athelia Solutions