Otodata and Bell Canada
Real-time tank level measuring increases efficiency and reduces costs.
Regardless of location, tank levels, can be actively monitored via cellular connectivity, making maintaining and refilling more efficient and cost-effective.
The wireless tank level monitoring market is expected to reach nearly a quarter of a billion dollars by 2027, per forecasts from Berg Insights. This demand will be driven by the growing need for tank operators to increase efficiency while lowering costs, something that the Internet of Things (IoT) is making possible. Supply levels for stored liquids, gasses, fuels, oils, chemicals and solids, including grains and even ice, can be intelligently monitored with IoT-enabled sensors. Only cellular provides the scalable, flexible and cost-effective connectivity needed to ensure tank levels can remain actively monitored and maintained.
Better Planning
With Otodata’s Nee-Vo app, organizations can plan their distributions more efficiently and effectively, saving delivery costs and ensuring their customers’ tanks never run dry.
Overcome Shortages
CO2 for the beverage industry is in high-demand, exacerbated by supply chain-driven shortages. Otodata’s monitors enable enterprises to distribute the vital gas to customers most in need, ensuring no one has to cease production.
Maximum Scalability, Performance and Reliability
Otodata users can deploy tank monitors anywhere, under any condition. Devices work reliably out of the box and function without human intervention for 15-20 years.
Founded in 2010 and based in Montreal, Canada, Otodata manufactures and sells ruggedized tank and storage level monitoring devices. Today, their sensors can be easily installed on any storage device, in any environment or location, to measure supply levels for solids, liquids and gasses, offering customers the lowest cost-of-ownership of any monitoring solution on the market. The company operates six global offices located in North and South America and the Middle East.
Otodata’s customers include oil, fuel, propane and natural gas distributors as well as any organization whose customers need to measure supply levels of anything that can be stored in a tank. This includes not only fuels but chemicals, industrial gasses and solids like grains, seeds, feed and even bags of ice. Via the company’s Nee-Vo app, users can easily customize alert levels, track tank levels and view usage histories.
All of Otodata’s software and hardware design, R&D, development and manufacturing are handled in-house. Through strategic acquisitions, they have experienced rapid growth and expansion into new global markets. Having full control over all of their solutions has allowed them to be very adaptive and reactive to evolving customer requirements, further fueling the company’s rise to being the number one tank monitoring company in the world.
Initially, Otodata connected their IoT-enabled monitoring systems via a private network consisting of roughly 1,000 towers deployed throughout eastern Canada. The company soon realized this setup would severely limit their expansion beyond the region as their customers required national and international coverage.
Otodata needed a way to achieve rapid global growth by enabling their monitoring devices to work straight from the box, anywhere in the world without requiring human intervention for the entirety of their 15- to 20-year lifespan. They also needed the means to remotely manage each device’s connectivity (activation, provisioning and deactivation) in addition to the data they collected.
To enable their tank level monitors to work anywhere, Otodata began installing SIM cards into their devices allowing them to work on the public cellular network. They selected Cat-M1 and NB-IoT connectivity from Bell Canada and other international providers, as well as built a proprietary device management platform – IoTM – which integrates with Aeris IoT Accelerator.
Otodata can now ship their tank monitors “active” and ready to get to work right out of the box, which differentiates their products from competition in a meaningful way to their clients. Units autoactivate upon arrival and billing occurs automatically after a short period of time.
Otodata takes advantage of preferable pricing packages of 100 kilobytes (KB) per month from Bell Canada. Typical devices use roughly 50 KBs of data monthly, transmitting 1.75 times each day on average across their entire ecosystem.
– Andre Boulay, President of Otodata
By selecting cellular connectivity from Bell Canada and connectivity management via Aeris IoT Accelerator platform, Otodata is able to ship globally, meet demand and capitalize on the growing tank market. Of the 12 million propane tanks in North America alone, a number that is increasing by 600,000 to 700,000 per year, 2 million of those are monitored by Otodata devices, leaving the company room to continue its growth and remain the market leader.
Otodata will be hitting 5 million devices sold shortly , with no signs of slowing down. They recently began their expansion into the growing European market where they have already deployed 400,000 tank monitors.
– Peter Wilcox, Director 5G Business at Bell
Otodata is enabling their customers to abandon previous, outdated business models, moving from just selling fuel, gasses, oil, etc, to providing them as-a-service. Whether servicing an industrial manufacturing enterprise, a large carwash company which needs cleaning chemicals to perform 120,000 car washes annually or a CO2 provider to the beverage industry, Otodata’s customers can refill those tanks in the most efficient manner by planning delivery routes, distribution strategies and ensuring their customers’ tanks are never empty. Enterprises can increase efficiency and lower costs while their customers never have to worry about production stoppages due to a lack of materials.
With cellular connectivity, monitoring devices can be deployed no matter how remote the location or extreme the environmental conditions, at incredible scale and in the most cost-effective manner. Customers don’t have to worry about programming, just the installation, and gain the peace-of-mind of knowing that the monitor will work without maintenance for the next 15 to 20 years. All these IoT-enabled advantages give Otodata a significant leg up over their competition.