Gas Cylinder Management - ACCURA

The simple solution for tracking and managing your cylinder holdings

ACCURA is an easy-to-use, secure, cloud-based service that equips you with the tools and insights you need to track and manage BOC cylinders at your hospital or site. This allows you to improve control over your gas cylinders, optimise holdings, reduce wasted gas, enhance safety and ensure traceability. All of this data can be displayed in useful and easy to read reports.

How does it work?

All BOC cylinders come with a barcode, which contains detailed information about the cylinder and the gas it contains. Every time BOC delivers a new cylinder, exchanges an existing one or accepts a returned cylinder, this movement is recorded and uploaded to the ACCURA cloud. Similarly, you can track internal cylinder movements at your premise using a dedicated smartphone app, which reads cylinder barcodes using the phone’s camera. This information is also automatically uploaded to the ACCURA cloud for you to access. This means that you always have access to the latest, most accurate cylinder information, which you can view or download using the ACCURA smartphone app or a regular web browser.

Gas Cylinder Management - ACCURA
Example of how ACCURA could be used in a hospital setting: 1. BOC delivery, 2. BOC scans to customer site, 3. Customer scans to internal locations (A&E, ward 1 etc.), 4. Customer can scan assets between their own storage locations.

ACCURA can provide you with a wealth of useful information to:

  • Identify where gas cylinder stocks are located
  • Display all cylinder movements
  • Reveal slow-moving cylinders
  • Search for specific gas types or cylinder sizes
  • Optimise cylinder stock holdings
  • Reduce “emergency” deliveries
  • Set target stocks for individual locations
  • Supply accurate usage reports by gas type and department.

ACCURA can also assist with budget planning, defining appropriate cylinder holdings and cost reallocation by whole site or individual locations.

Increased productivity

  • Monitor and improve cylinder utilisation
  • Relocate cylinders to optimise cylinder use
  • Reduce the time needed for internal administration

Improved safety
  • Easily recall cylinders from batches through traceability
  • Properly manage cylinders within their defined shelf lives
  • Locate potentially hazardous cylinders immediately in an emergency situation

Reduced expenses
  • Reduce the total number of cylinders held on site
  • Reduce the number of “lost” gas cylinders and the related charges
  • Improve cost control through greater transparency

Quality and traceability
  • Trace individual cylinders used at various stages of an entire hospital or trust
  • Maintain detailed records of who transferred cylinders and when
  • Run detailed reports and display on screen or download as a spreadsheet.

Register your interest in ACCURA


Case Study: The London Clinic

The London Clinic was one of the early adopters of ACCURA and BOC has been working closely with them to fully integrate the system. Understanding the importance of gases as a medicinal product, the London Clinic wanted to ensure they had an auditable trail, whilst identifying areas for improvement in the medical gas management. 

Having the right amount of gas in the right place at the right time
 “We’ve historically had challenges with tracking cylinder usage. ACCURA has enabled us to manage medical gases more efficiently, as we now have visibility of cylinder movements at a departmental level. This allows us to better allocate the most appropriate number of cylinders to each area.
We use the ACCURA reporting tools to monitor cylinder usage and identify areas for improvement. ACCURA also offers the possibility of specifying minimum and maximum stock levels. If a maximum stock level is reached, the system highlights this and sends an email. This is helping to better control the medical gas supply and limit our spend.” 

Medicines management
“ACCURA provides an audit trail, which is vital for medicines management. We can see where a medical gas has been moved, who by, and when. We’ve also periodically been using the stock check functionality to identify missing cylinders, so this can be reconciled with BOC. Without ACCURA it is extremely difficult to identify missing cylinders and cylinders that have gone beyond their expiry date. 

With ACCURA, we can now quickly identify cylinders that are due to expire and put them in an area where they are more likely to be used. Or return expired cylinders back to BOC, which reduces the risk that they are used with a patient.” 

Cost allocation
“As we can now see exactly how many cylinders each ward and department are using, this has subsequently allowed us to charge the cost of the gases to each area, which has improved the accountability for medical gas cylinders.”
Dean Parris-McLean, Pharmacy, The London Clinic

  • What is ACCURA?

    ACCURA is an innovative, easy-to-use service that helps you manage your gas cylinders more efficiently. It allows you to track and trace individual cylinders across all gas usage and storage points on your site. You can use this real-time information to run stock counts, track movement histories, analyse usage and rotation patterns, find lost cylinders, and set alerts for quality and safety.

    ACCURA is a secure, cloud-based service with integrated online ordering1 functionality so you can place follow-up orders if stocks are running low and replace cylinders close to their expiry dates.

    In summary, ACCURA inventory intelligence allows you to improve control over gas cylinders, optimise holdings, eliminate waste, enhance safety and ensure traceability. All of which translates into time, cost and quality savings.

    1 Available to BOC online account holders through the BOC online shop.

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  • How does ACCURA work?

    All BOC cylinders come with a barcode, which contains detailed information about the cylinder and gas it contains. Every time BOC delivers a new cylinder, exchanges an existing one or accepts a returned cylinder, this movement is recorded and uploaded to the ACCURA cloud. Similarly, you can track internal cylinder movements using a special smartphone app, which can read cylinder barcodes using the phone’s camera. This information is also automatically uploaded to the ACCURA cloud. This means that you always have access to the latest, most accurate cylinder information, which you can view or download using a smartphone app or a regular web browser.

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  • What are the benefits of ACCURA?

    ACCURA enables you to work more productively and safely, reduce costs, improve quality and trace your cylinders more easily. For instance, ACCURA reports help you count and optimise your holdings, track movement histories and find “lost” cylinders. In addition, ACCURA allows you to analyse usage and rotation patterns so you can see what assets are not moving as quickly as they should and avoid unnecessary costs. And because it is web-based, you can place follow-up orders over the Internet1 if stocks are running low, and replace cylinders close to expiry dates. You can even set safety alerts so you know when a cylinder needs to be recalled or replaced. 

    1 Available to BOC online account holders through the BOC online shop.

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  • What does ACCURA cost?

    To sign up for ACCURA, you need to pay a one-off access fee and a monthly subscription fee, which is linked to the number of cylinders you hold. This subscription fee varies depending on whether you opt for ACCURA Connect or ACCURA Total Cylinder Management (TCM).

    In general, however, these fees are offset by the money you save as a result of managing your cylinder assets more efficiently. See below for more details on how you can save money with ACCURA.

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  • What is the difference between ACCURA Connect and ACCURA Total Cylinder Management (TCM)?

    ACCURA Connect gives you reports on your cylinder holdings and their movements. It also supports active, expiry date and recall alerts as well as online ordering1. ACCURA Total Cylinder Management extends the Connect offering with a cylinder management service (multi-location scanning), stocktake functionality for inventory control and cylinder performance reporting such as days in stock, days at current location, slow moving stock, cylinder rotation, gas consumption and unexpected movement reports. 

    1 Available to BOC online account holders through the BOC online shop.

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  • How do I download the smartphone app?

    You can use ACCURA from a PC or mobile device. For mobile devices, you will need to download the ACCURA app from the Apple app store or the Google Play app store.

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  • What kind of devices does the mobile app work on?

    ACCURA runs on all Apple mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) with iOS8 and above, and on Android devices with Android 5.0 and above. 

    You can download the ACCURA app and run it on any device with the operating systems listed above. Please check the data protection/privacy regulations that apply at your company before installing ACCURA on your mobile device. Alternatively, BOC can supply scanning devices where required.

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  • How do I use ACCURA on my PC?

    The entire ACCURA service is web-based so all you need is a web browser and you can log directly into ACCURA over the cloud. BOC will supply you with user names and passwords for both regular users and administrators.

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  • Can I use ACCURA offline?

    Yes. You can use ACCURA offline if your mobile device is not connected to the Internet or you have no WiFi connection. When you log back on to the ACCURA portal, the system synchronises all the information you scanned with the cloud.

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  • Does ACCURA link to my invoicing system?

    ACCURA enables you to manage cylinders at multiple sites, reducing administration effort and helping to allocate costs internally, but it does not directly link to invoicing systems.

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  • How many subscribers can use the ACCURA application?

    ACCURA supports an unlimited number of users. Please contact your local BOC representative for details on pricing.

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  • Why should I structure my ACCURA system into departments?

    If you create a structure with departments and sub-locations, it will be very easy for you to perform analyses, trace movements and generate reports for each sub-location. Depending on how the sub-locations are configured and defined, you can then also allocate costs to different departments, external partners and subcontractors.

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  • Can I edit or change my ACCURA account once it has been created?

    Yes. You can easily change internal locations or adapt the ACCURA functions that each of your users can perform in line with your changing business needs. For example, you can modify admin users, admin user rights, end-user profiles, end-user rights and cylinder locations. BOC can also adapt your account set-up on request.

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  • Do I need to scan my cylinders?

    You do not need to scan your cylinders into or out of ACCURA when they are delivered or picked up by BOC as they will be automatically added to or subtracted from your ACCURA account. However, if you have created various sub-locations at your site and you wish to move cylinders between these sub-locations, you will have to scan cylinders yourself as you move them around. You can use the smartphone app or the web portal for this.

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  • Is there a difference in reporting functionality between the web portal and the mobile app?

    Yes. The mobile app contains basic reports such as assets by location or assets by material. The web portal offers a wider choice of reports and more sophisticated reporting functionality. You can also use the ACCURA portal to generate a wide range of reports that will enable you to trace individual cylinders across multiple sites at various stages of production – and back through the entire supply chain. These include standardised reports detailing who transferred cylinders and when, as well as detailed usage and performance reports, which can be displayed on screen or downloaded as spreadsheets.

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  • How do I view data and can I download reports?

    You can view data directly on the ACCURA portal under the Reports section. You can download the reports you need from there.

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  • How fast is data updated in ACCURA?

    ACCURA is a cloud-based system that works seamlessly across all of your mobile devices and the internet. Changes to the system are updated as fast as any leading internet service allows – all you need is a functioning internet connection.

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  • What happens if I don't scan cylinders on my account?

    BOC automatically records the cylinders that it delivers to and picks up from your site as part of its Individual Cylinder Control (ICC) service. Hence your ACCURA account balance will always be correct. However, if you move cylinders between sub-locations at your company without scanning, you will not benefit from the full functionality of ACCURA.

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  • Can I see how long a cylinder has been at a location?

    Yes. You can view this information for every cylinder using the Reports function (Days in Stock) on the ACCURA web portal or your smartphone.

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  • Can I see who has scanned cylinders once I set up my account?

    Yes. You can set up individual end-user profiles. Admin users (managers) will then be able to monitor detailed user histories.

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  • How can ACCURA help me ensure that I do not use gas cylinders beyond their expiry dates?

    When you set up your ACCURA account, you can also set up automatic alerts for gases and mixtures that expire. You simply specify the gases in question and when you would like to receive notifications. You can also search for cylinders close to expiry dates or use the reporting function to generate a report with all cylinders and their location.

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  • Why does ACCURA not show any information for a cylinder I've just scanned?

    This could be due to a number of reasons. It may be, for instance, that you are trying to scan a cylinder that was not supplied by BOC. Alternatively, the barcode on the cylinder may be damaged or the camera on your mobile device may not be functioning properly. Try entering the barcode number manually, or contact your BOC representative for assistance.

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  • How can I use ACCURA to locate cylinders more quickly in the event of a product recall?

    ACCURA enables you to quickly and remotely locate all cylinders in your facility at any time. This is much faster than searching manually for different cylinders and helps keep time spent on recalls to a minimum.

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  • Can ACCURA help me track the location of all safety-classified cylinders (to comply with regulatory authority requirements)?

    Yes. You can use ACCURA to quickly search for or provide reports on cylinders that are part of a specific safety or hazard class. ACCURA, therefore, supports rapid traceability and quality control. You can also consolidate information for inspectors and regulatory authorities.

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  • Our company requires that certain gases be fully traceable, from the supplier to the point of use on site. Can ACCURA help me meet this requirement?

    Yes. You can mirror your company’s organisational structure in the ACCURA system in order to fully trace all of your gases and cylinders and leave an auditable trail for each individual cylinder.

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  • How do I set up locations and sub-locations in ACCURA?

    ACCURA is an easy-to-use tool that puts you in control. You can quickly and easily use it to manage your own cylinder locations in accordance with your specific needs. You can, for instance, use the Load Form to define locations and sub-locations. Once this structure is in place, you can start scanning cylinders out of the central cylinder stock and moving them to the sub-locations defined in ACCURA so you can track individual gas usage across departments. However, should you need assistance, BOC expert users are on hand to help you set up your ACCURA account.

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  • I am responsible for ensuring that staff in certain departments never run out of certain gases. Can ACCURA help me do this?

    Yes. ACCURA allows you to define full cylinder stock levels for each department. If you set up this option, the “Order alert and assist” function will send you notifications and alarms when levels are running low. ACCURA will then automatically prepare the follow-up order so all you need to do is confirm it1. You can also assign each cylinder a status, so you always know which cylinders are full, empty or in use. 

    1 Available to BOC online account holders through the BOC online shop.

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  • What happens if a cylinder doesn't have a barcode?

    It is highly unlikely that BOC will deliver a cylinder without a barcode. However, if a barcode does go missing, you can manage the cylinder in question by manually entering the serial number on the cylinder body into the system. Depending on when the cylinder was last scanned, you may need to call your BOC representative for assistance. BOC will fix this issue as soon as the cylinder is returned.

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  • What happens if I scan a BOC cylinder belonging to another BOC customer such as a contractor?

    ACCURA will still track the cylinder on your site, but when it is returned to BOC, the cylinder will be taken off the original customer’s holdings.

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  • What should I do if I forget my password?

    You will be asked to enter your password every time you launch the ACCURA tool. On the login screen, there is a link for resetting your password. If you cannot remember your password, simply click on this link and you will be sent an email that enables you to quickly and easily reset your password.

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  • Who do I contact if I have an issue?

    You can contact a customer service representative through the usual channels, for example by phone or email.

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