MapMechanics’ TruckStops optimisation helps CPL streamline solid fuel deliveries

BRENTFORD, U.K. - July 26, 2013 - PRLog -- The TruckStops (http://www.TruckStopsRouting.com) routing and scheduling optimisation system from MapMechanics is playing a vital role in a drive by leading solid fuel supplier CPL Distribution, a division of CPL Industries, to streamline deliveries to consumers and retail outlets.

Working in conjunction with the Microlise vehicle tracking and fleet management system, TruckStops is helping CPL to centralise delivery planning, reduce delivery cost, and trial new concepts.

The application is the first in which TruckStops has been implemented in conjunction with the Microlise telematics system, and also marks the development of a special way of using TruckStops that has been nicknamed “eco mode”. This allows the operator to apply different prioritisation to deliveries – for instance, efficiency, lead time and cost – according to service-level agreements and delivery promise.

CPL delivers from depots at strategic locations throughout England and Wales, using a fleet of delivery trucks of various sizes, which is augmented during the peak winter season.

Historically, vehicles were scheduled manually at depot level, but operations director Graham Hughes points out: “This was just about sustainable with 120 or more orders a day, but presented a major challenge during peaks, when the order volume could increase dramatically.” Consequently, he says, lead times were suffering.

Members of the CPL team were aware of the benefits of routing and scheduling from experience in the oil industry, and decided to apply the same concept to their business. Initially they introduced TruckStops at two depots – Chessington and Widford, in different parts of the South East.

Under the new system, TruckStops is used daily on a dynamic basis to schedule deliveries for the following day. Orders are pulled from the Perito Enterprise Resource Planning suite from Equinity ICS, which is used by CPL to manage its core business processes, and are scheduled by TruckStops and then transferred wirelessly to Intermec CM50 rugged handheld computers carried by the drivers.

The Microlise software on these devices presents details of each delivery to the driver in turn, and also guides them to each destination, using integrated CoPilot satellite navigation software from ALK Technologies.

A special database-driven module was developed to extract the data from Perito and feed it to TruckStops in a suitable form. When deliveries have been made, data captured by the Microlise system is passed back to Perito for invoicing or other processing.

TruckStops’ novel “eco mode” harnesses the application’s built-in capabilities to combine multiple scenarios into composite schedules, allowing CPL to respect varying delivery requirements, yet at the same time operate as efficiently as possible overall.

“Using TruckStops has made our deliveries much more efficient,” he says, “and has also provided a solid basis for testing new ways to streamline our operations.”

Looking ahead, he says TruckStops has also paved the way for experimenting with further efficiency measures.

“We couldn’t have looked at these new ideas without first introducing TruckStops to make sure that our existing delivery operation was as efficient as we could make it.”