Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
A high-tech transport optimisation solution from Paragon Software Systems means builders merchant group Travis Perkins can plan customer deliveries automatically.
The new centralised routing and scheduling software will improve operational efficiency and customer service as well as increasing transport productivity.
The new software allows Travis Perkins branches to add additional order information to tickets within the in-house POS system. This information is used to generate a delivery plan for the day.
The company believes that the new streamlined procedure will make branch customer delivery routes more efficient but without requiring specialist planning knowledge and skills or manual intervention by its branch staff.
The software runs in the background on a central server and can plan the delivery routes for all branches, so vehicles can be used as a shared resource within regions.
Travis Perkins Group transport development and planning manager Richard Horton, said: “We are really pleased with the cost and efficiency improvements that using the Paragon software are opening up to us.
“We are forecasting significant transport fuel cost savings in the regions we have set up so far. It is not an easy process to manually plan building materials deliveries to customers’ addresses as there are so many variables. As the software generates the optimum daily delivery plan automatically, yet allows local branch teams to make minor adjustments based on local knowledge, we can focus our attention more on developing our customer service.”
