Garden State Growers cultivates more efficient plant distribution with TRUCKSTOPS

Sept. 18, 2014 - PRLog -- Using the TRUCKSTOPS vehicle routing and scheduling system from MAPMECHANICS in combination with the Plant Partner enterprise resource planning system from Starcom Computer Corp. is helping Garden State Growers LLC., a leading wholesale greenhouse business based in New Jersey, to develop new and more efficient ways of providing a fast and responsive delivery service to retail customers throughout the American North East.

Ironically, Garden State Growers almost stopped using TRUCKSTOPS when support for the product in North America was discontinued a few years ago. It was only when the company was contacted by MAPMECHANICS, the owner and developer of TRUCKSTOPS worldwide, that it renewed its commitment to the system.

In the words of Greg Van Grouw, Garden State Growers’ head of inventory: “Mapmechanics’ approach couldn’t have been more timely. Our previous version of Truckstops was installed on an old PC and protected by a parallel-port license key*. We were worried that it would fail, leaving us with no way to continue using it.

The company actually reached the stage of trying a substitute scheduling system, though it soon found this lacked the required functionality. “But the call from Mapmechanics gave us the reassurance to upgrade to the latest version of Truckstops and go back to using a system we already knew would work well for us.”

Garden State Growers produces and distributes a range of plants including annuals, perennials, and ground cover, which it supplies to big box stores, supermarkets, garden centers, and smaller retail businesses. “We need to be highly responsive to consumer demand that can change from day to day,” explains Greg. “This requires us to plan vehicle movements as flexibly as possible, so that we can make changes right up to the last minute.

“We also need to keep careful track of the steel carts that we use for transporting the plants, since they are expensive to replace. Our object is to recover them as economically as possible.”

Orders received by Garden State Growers are processed by Starcom’s Plant Partner software, which handles the entire pulling and loading process, and has many functions designed for growers. These include managing seasonal orders, filling carts economically and handling order substitutions.

The orders are downloaded daily to TRUCKSTOPS for routing and scheduling – an arrangement that allows the company to vary schedules to reflect late changes in customer requirements, which can be influenced by quite small changes in the weather.

The system plans journeys automatically to achieve optimum vehicle fill and minimum time, distance and cost consistent with legal constraints, delivery time windows and available driving time, and includes options to take account of truck restrictions such as height, width, and weight. This has been an important feature for Garden State Growers, helping the company to route its longest and tallest vehicles safely, using only suitable roads.

The requirement to collect empty carts poses special demands. In some cases they can be picked up on return journeys, but it can be difficult to predict when carts will have been emptied by retailers. “We don’t want to leave them on site too long,” says Greg Van Grouw, “but equally we don’t want to make special trips to pick them up unless we’re sure they will be empty. The ideal time for collection can fall within quite a narrow window.”

However, MAPMECHANICS and Starcom have been working together to smooth this process. The Plant Partner system helps by keeping precise track of which carts are delivered to which retailer and when, and MAPMECHANICS has been working with Starcom to develop a system that allows TRUCKSTOPS to capture that information and feed it into the scheduling process.

Garden State mostly uses outside motor carriers to handle its deliveries and collections, augmented by a core fleet of company vehicles. “We use the same carriers regularly,” says Greg. “They get to know how we work, and we treat them as if they were part of our own team.” Vehicle types include both straight trucks and tractor-trailer outfits.

In particular, he says, all vehicles are scheduled by TRUCKSTOPS as part of a common pool. “We don’t have to set up each carrier as a separate business center and schedule its trucks separately.” However, the company provides its own fleet of trailers, which are equipped with special equipment and other features unique to this type of operation.

Among the features Greg likes about the latest version of TRUCKSTOPS are the more modern interface, and the fact that it can work with various different mapping systems. “By using the HERE mapping system, we now avoid having to install frequent costly patches and updates, which we used to experience in the past.” HERE was formerly known as NAVTEQ vector digital mapping.

Some years ago Garden State undertook its own project to geocode all known customer locations, checking with staff on the spot in any instances where there was any doubt about the exact location. TRUCKSTOPS is able to take account of this information when creating its schedules.

In its next stage of development, Garden State Growers plans to offer a transportation capability to outside customers, taking advantage of the spare capacity of its own and its carriers’ truck fleets in off-peak periods of the year. “We foresee a key role for Truckstops in that operation,” Greg says.

Starcom president Sharon Nuss says she welcomes the increasingly close working relationship between MAPMECHANICS and Plant Partner. “Mapmechanics has shown that it is willing to make adjustments to its software in order to work more closely with our industry. The result is some pretty tight integration of loading and staging with the logistics function, which is what our shared customers want.”

Plant Partner includes dashboards that provide quick visibility of key business data such as order status and demand, providing an opportunity to take advantage of the increasingly tight integration between the two products.

MAPMECHANICS’ director and founder Mary Short comments: “Truckstops has proved particularly flexible in meeting the unique requirements of specialist vertical markets, especially in dynamic sectors such as plants and produce, where demands can change rapidly from day to day. That’s why so many growers already use it. Our relationship with Starcom can only increase its appeal in this field.”

* Parallel-port license key “dongles” were required with old versions of TRUCKSTOPS, but have not been used by MAPMECHANICS for many years.