Petrolsoft Corporation
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| Distribution software | |
| Industry | Petroleum |
| Fate | Acquired by Aspen Technology |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Founder | Bill Miller and David Gamboa |
| Defunct | 2000 |
| Headquarters | San Diego, California |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
Petrolsoft Corporation (1989–2000) was a supply chain management software company with a focus on the petroleum industry. Petrolsoft Corporation was founded at Stanford University in 1989 by Bill Miller and David Gamboa as Petrolsoft Software Group. It was later incorporated in 1992. Petrolsoft introduced demand-driven inventory management to the petroleum industry.
The initial idea for Petrolsoft's inventory management product came from founder David Gamboa family's cash flow problems at their chain of retail gasoline stations. Mr. Miller's analysis showed that it was being caused by an inventory imbalance of gasoline stocks. When they approached Chevron with their solution, they discovered this was more than just a family problem, rather an industry-wide problem. The software solution to this problem became Petrolsoft's initial product, based on inventory proportionality.
Gordon Hartogensis, a Stanford computer science graduate, joined the company in 1993 as the third partner to lead product development. Petrolsoft's products grew to include sales forecasting, inventory management, demand aggregation, remote inventory and sales reporting, and transportation optimization for the downstream petroleum supply chain and other bulk liquid supply chains.
Tank trucks in the oil industry are typically divided internally into 3 to 6 compartments of various sizes. Service stations typically sell three or four different grades of motor fuel. Each delivered grade of motor fuel must have a dedicated underground storage tank. For example, a four compartment truck bringing up to four different products can be filled in 256 (44) different ways. Petrolsoft’s technology would choose the optimal way to restore inventory proportionality to the station based on its forecasts of sales by product grade.
The technology would accurately forecast hourly demand for each grade of motor fuel at each service station, enabling it to determine when the first product would run out, the amounts of other products that would be left at that time, and when the optimal load chosen would fit in the underground storage tanks. The period of time from the forecasted time of fitting in the tanks to the point of product run out was called the “delivery window”. The delivery window represented the delivery flexibility of when the load could arrive at the service station so that it would fit in the tanks, and arrive prior to first product run out.
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