TruckStops multi-depot scheduling underlies efficiency drive by UK carpet firm

July 28, 2011 - PRLog -- The TruckStops vehicle routing and scheduling optimisation system from MapMechanics is one of the key resources underpinning a major logistics efficiency improvement drive by Cormar Carpets and its logistics contractor Wincanton.

Cormar is unusual in producing its range at its own factory in the UK. It sells its carpets through a large network of retailers, who include both big high-street names and small and medium-sized retailers, and takes particular pride in the quality of its products and service.

The Perfect Order project is expected to yield cost savings of around a quarter of a million pounds in total, as well as improving customer service, reducing delivery times and making it much easier and more convenient for retailers to place orders with the company.

TruckStops(http://www.truckstopsrouting.com) was one of the first resources to be put in place, laying the ground work on which the Perfect Order project was subsequently developed. As the scheme has taken shape, TruckStops has risen to the challenge, delivering further savings through its dynamic scheduling capability and multi-depot features.

Meanwhile, Cormar is now also using other MapMechanics products, including the GeoXploit geographic information suite and OptiSite network modelling tool for functions such as market penetration analysis, territory planning and service level analysis.

Cormar Carpets manufactures just outside Bury, and delivers via a network of regional bases. Logistics contractor Wincanton manages the company’s fleet and provides the depot infrastructure.

In the past, Cormar allocated each customer to the nearest logical depot and scheduled deliveries manually – a process which logistics manager Craig Marshall describes as “slow and inexact” – and delivery volumes were rising steadily. So the company researched the market for a routing and scheduling solution, and found that TruckStops matched all its criteria.

“It worked out of the box, yet was powerful and easy to integrate with our existing back-office computer system,” Craig Marshall says. “Also it was sensibly priced. Other major suppliers didn’t seem to be so interested in working with a medium-sized business like ours.”

Initially TruckStops was used to create fixed routes that could be fine-tuned as orders built up day by day. Now, however, the company has switched to using TruckStops on a fully dynamic basis. This means that drop-specific journeys are generated automatically for each day’s deliveries.

TruckStops' multi-depot scheduling capability has also allowed a radical change in the way orders are handled. Customers are no longer associated with a specific depot; instead, TruckStops schedules the entire network's deliveries at the same time, and allocates drops to whichever depot and delivery route can handle them most efficiently on any given day.

Cormar delivers with a fleet of demountable-body drawbar trailer and rigid DAF trucks. Orders are pre-loaded at its warehouse in Tottington, near the company's Ramsbottom factory; then at the depots the bodies are transferred to local delivery chassis as necessary.

A further benefit of TruckStops, says Craig Marshall, is its ability to respect delivery time windows. “Many of our smaller retailers can only accept deliveries at specific times. The implementation forced us to look carefully at our database, and ensure that we held a record of the acceptable delivery times for all these customers. TruckStops now creates journeys that take them into account.”

The combined effect of all these changes has been to produce much more efficient routes and make the planning process more reliable, Craig Marshall says. “We have been able to increase the average number of drops per load from eight or nine up to thirteen, yet improve service levels at the same time.” He adds: “We are now achieving at least 98 per cent on-time delivery performance.”

The new measures have also reduced typical order turnround times. Formerly Cormar offered delivery in three to five days, but now it can deliver within 48 hours, and often next day.

Crucially, TruckStops has been able to support other measures that make up Cormar’s Perfect Order programme. For instance, once schedules have been prepared by TruckStops, they are fed back into Cormar’s back-office ERP system, and from here they are uploaded daily to Intermec wireless handheld terminals carried by each Wincanton driver.

These terminals allow the drivers to use a scanning and sign-on-screen proof of delivery system, which is based round the Delivery Management System (DMS) from Amethyst Systems. An online proof of delivery is now usually available within nine minutes of delivery.

In the next phase of the project, Cormar is introducing online order-taking, enabling customers to check stock availability, place orders and track their progress through a dedicated web site.

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MapMechanics provide innovative map based solutions. Based in the United Kingdom they have been providing software, data and consultancy for logistics and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for over twenty years.