Case Study: Producing
vehicle schedules for High Street deliveries
A national retailer was making around 300
deliveries per week to its shops. Stores were located in high streets
and shopping malls which resulted in complex timing rules for each
delivery and different unloading rates, depending on how close to the
store the vehicle could park. Orders were calculated after the critical
weekend sales period and stock had to be in stores in good time for the
next weekend. This had the effect of compressing the distribution task,
as vehicles could not leave until picked orders became available from
the warehouse.
The client had developed a series of fixed delivery schedules for each
season manually. Reasonable levels of efficiency were being achieved but
the time spent developing the schedules was a significant drain on
resources. We were asked to produce the schedules with Paragon.
We began by analysing the performance of drivers on existing routes to
ensure the correct road speed settings and unloading rates were used.
The client provided a database recording the delivery quantities,
frequencies and timing rules for each store. A detailed analysis of
picking rates and order availability also took place, enabling us to
control the departure time of picked loads to match the warehouse
performance.
These requirements and analyses were drawn together into a Paragon model
and the first draft schedule was produced. This was scrutinised and
detailed adjustments were made, resulting in a schedule which was
implemented successfully.
Since then, schedules have been produced regularly to handle seasonal
variations, bank holidays and new store openings. The database of
deliveries has been regularly updated for new schedules. Fine tuning has
occurred and specialist reports have been developed. The elapsed time to
develop a new schedule has been dramatically reduced. Typically this now
takes two or three days from receiving new instructions to developing
the final reports.
Savings in the number of vehicles required of around 7% have been
achieved.
