It is known that LP gas is supplied by gas imported from gas-producing countries and gas as a byproduct of domestic process of petroleum oil products. An import base for storing LP gas transferred from gas-producing countries by a tanker and a petroleum oil purification base are referred to as a primary base. LP gas is loaded from the primary base to domestic vessels or tank trucks and is shipped to a secondary base that is located at a coast or an inland and that functions as a supply base for LP gas transportation. The LP gas transported to the secondary base is transported to an LP gas filling station at each location (i.e., a delivery base) and is filled into a gas cylinder (gas bottle) at a delivery base.
The gas cylinders filled at the respective filling stations are delivered by a deliveryman to a customer's home (e.g., a standard home, collective housing, or office). An empty gas cylinder of the customer's home is exchanged with a filled gas cylinder and the empty gas cylinder is collected to a filling station. Each filling station has a fixed delivery area for which a deliveryman is responsible. A deliveryman receives delivery slips corresponding to 2 to 10 days showing delivery destinations to which gas cylinders should be delivered to customer's homes within the delivery area.
A delivery slip is prepared by a delivery manager. First, with regard to each customer, the amount of LP gas remaining in the gas cylinder is predicted based on the past gas usage, the meter indication of the gas meter of the customer's home, and the actually-delivered number. Then, the next delivery due date of gas cylinder(s) is determined. Integration is carried out for all customers within the delivery area for which the deliveryman is responsible to determine the delivery amount of gas cylinders corresponding to 2 to 10 days.
After the deliveryman exchanges the gas cylinder with the new one based on the delivery slip, the deliveryman writes, into a delivery slip, the respective items of a date of exchange, the meter indication of the exchange date, the cylinder number, and the safety inspection. When the daily delivery operation is completed, the delivery slip is submitted to the delivery manager. The delivery slip returned to the delivery manager is checked for an incomplete form by the delivery manager and is subsequently stored as data used to calculate the next delivery due date. A system has been suggested to provide an efficient delivery of gas cylinders under a system as described above (see Patent Publication 1).
As disclosed in Patent Publication 1, a system for providing an efficient delivery of gas cylinders has been conventionally provided. However, there has been no system that dynamically changes meter reading areas allocated to gas meter readers.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds