Murco Petroleum

Murco Petroleum Limited has a fast growing network of more than 230 service stations throughout England, Scotland and Wales. The company is also expanding rapidly in the forecourt non-fuel retailing sector

Management of Murco’s service stations used to involve the manual filling-in of a daily report sheet, which was then posted to head office. At head office, the information was input into the mainframe system, again manually. The process was laborious and was always at least two weeks behind. In order to improve efficiency, an online application was developed which allowed each site manager to enter their report directly into the central system. In order to implement its new retail site reporting system, Murco needed a business-strength IP network.

"We chose Timico as our technology partner for a number of reasons. Firstly because they understood our technology requirements and could provide the kind of robust and secure IP infrastructure we needed. Secondly they could do all this at the best cost for us and thirdly, they are a good fit and we are able to interface at the right levels for the services we need - this wouldn’t happen with BT," says Umar Bajwa, Manager UK Networks, Murco Petroleum Limited.

Timico installed a private wide area network (PWAN) at each retail site, using Murco specified architecture, and providing them with secure ADSL-based connectivity into the core network which also houses a co-located Murco access control system (Firewall to PWAN). Murco’s St Albans headquarters was also set up with a 10 Mb leased line which provides access to the PWAN and the Internet. In addition, Timico manages the company’s business mobiles and provides it with a bespoke system of billing.

"Timico manages the core network for us and sorts out the odd hiccup. As we expand the Murco business, they smoothly integrate the new sites," continues Umar Bajwa. "We are much more efficient now and can produce a management report the day after we receive the reports in from all the retail sites."

Now that the Timico network is in place, Murco is well positioned to take advantage of further efficiencies and is looking at introducing an intranet, which will allow managers of the retail sites to download general and site specific information. An online quality control application is also being developed.

"The Timico network has made us much more efficient and allowed Murco to manage a large, and increasingly growing, network without significantly increasing its staff," concludes Umar Bajwa.

Umar Bajwa
Murco Petroleum

Download PDF version