Aptean Routing & Scheduling Success Story: Martin Brower

Transcript:

Martin Brower, a supply chain, end-to-end logistic solution business. We're a global business with over 60 DCs in 18 countries across the world.

I think customers today require a higher level of service. And whereas in the past you could have perhaps gotten away with morning or an afternoon delivery. They don't want that, they want a closer time; they want an absolute time. And not only that when you give a customer and absolute time of 8 a.m. they expect it to be there at 8 a.m. So certainly more challenging from a customer perspective. I think competition will remain with us forever. I think legislation, legislation perhaps, but we don't we're not even aware of today, but certainly I'm sure that they will include further reductions in CO2.

Today, you know, we can track every vehicle that we own, so every Martin Brower vehicle in UK has a tracker fitted to it. And then that tracker system communicates with our routing and scheduling systems. And we can, we can learn from delays. Also, the routing and scheduling system that we use is already equipped to be aware of some of those delays because of the certain packages which we have like the INRIX Road Speed for example, helps to determine the road in advance of the schedule.

So it already knows that there's delays in certain parts of the country and it applies those. But it's learning as well. So we get information back, we'll learn information from the drivers themselves, who will come back and talk to us about specific difficult areas or roadworks or some temporary diversion for some reason. We can apply those within our systems and therefore we don't then have an ongoing problem with our customers. We can ensure good delivery.

There's lots of different solutions available. In fact, there's a lot more than I even imagined. And certainly as a business we tested a number of packages. And they included things like how easy were they to use, what were the graphics like, and certainly by no means least, what was the output? Which was distinctly the best from our chosen solution, which was Paragon.

But one other thing you have to consider is the longevity of a product. Which, it's so hard buying a product, which is, which is good and maybe it may even be top of the road today, but where will it be in 10 years, or 20 years? And the relationship that certainly I've had with Paragon over the last two decades is that we've worked together whenever I need something for some development it's not currently being available, quite often, it's available in the next build. So Paragon is in a state of perpetual development. I don't see the end, you know, we're latest build five-nine version, six is coming, and there's new things in the pipeline after that.

We have Paragon Routing and Scheduling. We have Multi-Depot, because use multi depots in the UK, Integrated Fleets. We use Multi Period Planner, Multi Period Planner's a strategic modeling tool. So it's not an everyday use, but it's a very, very useful tool. We have Street Level Mapping. Once again, very beneficial, especially if you need any dynamic routing systems where you can take different routes every day. So they enhanced mapping of the street level using much more accurate results. We also have in place the truck data. So that includes things like height and weight limits.

Many years ago, this wasn't available, it did cause some problems. When the drivers come back and said "I had to take a 20 minute detour because it was a low bridge." With things like the truck data available, that will make life a lot easier and gives much more accurate schedules and have less impact on going to your deliveries.

Just something for, you know, potential Paragon users that if you use this product, you have this product, don't be afraid to try new things. Don't be afraid of contacting the guys at Paragon because they're here just waiting to help.

If your business is eager to utilize our purpose-built transportation and routing software like Martin Brower, contact our Routing team today.

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