Haffner’s Simplifies, Unifies its Compliance Management (Environmental and L&P) with Titan Cloud

As one of the largest wholesale distributors of fuel in New England and Upstate New York, Haffner’s (HAFFNER’S), which is owned by Energy North Incorporated (ENI), operates more than 70 gas stations, convenience stores, car washes, bulk fuel plants, home heating offices and foodservice locations. In addition to major brands, including Exxon, Mobil, Sunoco, Gulf and Citgo, HAFFNER’S is rapidly growing its Haffner’s and Tradewinds gas station and car wash brands and home heating business.

Much of its recent growth has derived from acquisitions, resulting in what had begun to feel like individual self-governing bodies, rather than one cohesive organization. HAFFNER’S needed to quickly unify a diverse, fragmented group of departments and management systems under one single source of truth to better manage its environmental compliance and L&P oversight for multiple areas (c-store and bulk plants).

“There are certain challenges that we expected with the rate of growth we have achieved,” said Melissa Davis, Senior Compliance Officer for Haffner’s. “Our teams need to efficiently share data across departments. This requires accurately assessing and reacting to that data, which ensures compliance across the business. Additionally, one of our core values is Do the Right Thing. It was very important to establish a compliance management system to help facilitate that core value from a compliance purview. Lastly, we needed to build a foundation for anticipated future growth.”

Navigating data, across a complicated and disjointed environment, placed a lot of stress on HAFFNER’S’s retail associates, who serve at the front line of the c-store business. Retail associates should focus on the customer experience. Compliance-related tasks should be centralized to remove added demands in a high-turnover area of the business and to place the burden on those trained specifically in the skill set and resources required to maintain compliance. These operations— which included environmental compliance and L&P documentation, automated tank gauge (ATG) alarm management, monthly release detection, 30-day walk-thru inspections, regulatory inspections, insurance requirements, testing, compliance-triggered R&M and more—functioned in silos using spreadsheets, manual data entry and vendor reliance, making it difficult to operate cohesively and efficiently. Compliance and L&P was primarily reactive rather than proactive.

Read how Haffner’s overcame the following challenges with Titan Cloud’s Fuel Asset Optimization solutions.

CHALLENGES

• Rapid growth through acquisition made collaboration challenging
• Fragmented compliance systems put extra burden on non-compliance team members
• Disconnected cross-departmental processes lacking a unified view
• Comprehensive project oversight for environmental remediation, monitoring, and construction

SOLUTIONS

• Centralized environmental compliance
• Centralized licensing and permitting (L&P)
• Centralized activity tracking for compliance-triggered repair and maintenance (R&M)
• Remote connectivity and fuel asset monitoring
• Centralized environmental remediation, monitoring, and management

RESULTS

• Transitioned from 0% to 91% remote connectivity within seven months
• Enhanced dispatching with comprehensive alarm management
• Increased data visibility, leading to more proactive R&M
• Proactive L&P measures to streamline L&P
• Safeguards to prevent overfills with transport division
• Centralized compliance document repository