Dive Brief:
- RaceTrac has partnered with tech solutions provider Sensolus to improve tracking of parts for its fuel pumps, the companies announced on Tuesday.
- The program will use Sensolus’ trackers and software to help RaceTrac track “critical parts transported between store locations and distribution centers,” offering a clearer picture of where items are in its supply chain and when supplies are running low.
- This is one of several technological integrations that Atlanta-based RaceTrac has made over the past year to improve operations and customer experience.
Dive Insight:
Fuel pump uptime has been a particular focus for RaceTrac, which integrated remote pump monitoring in late 2024. That technology allowed the retailer to see that up to 7% of its fuel pumps were out of service at any given time and automatically generate work orders, drastically increasing uptime.
“We’re now at a point where we’ve got about 0.3% of our pumps down at any point in time, typically waiting on a part to come in, which is an efficiency we’re still working on,” said Tyler Grubbs, executive director of digital and store technology at RaceTrac, during the National Retail Federation show earlier this year.
With this Senolus integration, RaceTrac is now addressing that problem.
Trackers will be put on reusable totes that contain important parts for repairing and maintaining fuel pumps, and the software will track where those totes are and how many of each item are in their inventory. The data will be sent to user-friendly dashboards, and the software will generate alerts when supplies of specific items run low.
“Having properly functioning fuel pumps is essential to our 24/7 business,” said Daniel Vasseur, executive director of supply chain merchandise at RaceTrac. “The partnership with Sensolus provides us a hi-tech solution to tracking the critical fuel pump parts needed to run our stores efficiently and deliver the highest customer service to our guests.”
RaceTrac also has made investments into tech for multiple other parts of its systems, including supply chain and temperature monitoring.
