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Territory managers in the BOC group’s Sureflow business who are delivering gas cylinders for drinks dispensing can now plan and manage their own journeys far more efficiently, thanks to a new system in which the GeoConcept geographic information system from Kingswood MapMechanics plays a major role.
BOC has also gained from a corporate management point of view, since it has been able to introduce a wide range of new reports on key performance indicators such as vehicle utilisation and distance travelled per journey. |
The new system, SMILE (Supplier Managed Inventory and Logistics Efficiency), assembles orders produced centrally by BOC’s SAP enterprise resource planning system, organises them into logical journeys, and transmits them over BOC’s intranet to the 20-odd branches where the territory managers, or SSPs (sales and service personnel), are based. The SSPs can then examine, amend and update the information interactively, planning ahead for the following week, before loading product and embarking on their journeys.
“The new system was built by our in-house development team,” explains Gareth Arnold, one of BOC’s best operating practice project managers, “but GeoConcept is a very significant element. Its time and distance matrix provides the core data for the routing engine, and its mapping capabilities allow us to view and amend delivery journeys and print out maps.”
BOC’s Sureflow business services supplies cellar gases to a wide range of pubs, clubs and other users of drinks dispensing equipment. Gas cylinders range from 5 to 50 litres in water capacity, and mostly contain CO2 or a CO2-nitrogen mix. Typical deliveries comprise five cylinders.
The SSPs are responsible for negotiating delivery frequency with customers, planning delivery journeys and making the deliveries on time, using a fleet of specially-equipped 7.5-tonne and 10-tonne rigid trucks.
Prior to the introduction of the new SMILE system, orders were downloaded from the SAP system directly to Symbol handheld terminals, which the managers inserted in docking cradles at the depot on their return from each day’s journey. Software on the terminals allowed them some latitude to rearrange and organise their journeys, “but visibility of the data was severely limited,” Gareth Arnold says, “and there was little scope for long-term forward planning.”
Now the SSPs use depot-based PCs on a weekly basis to view and manage their long-term delivery plan. Using customised web browser screens, they can check proposed journeys for current, previous and future weeks, transfer deliveries interactively between days and weeks, and look up information such as customer and delivery details.
The underlying routing engine, drawing on GeoConcept technologies, automatically rebuilds the schedules for any affected vehicles, and warns users if changes would overload vehicles in terms of weight or size.
SSPs can call up on-screen maps of the proposed journeys, which are generated by GeoConcept. These immediately highlight any anomalies such as deliveries outside the intended area. The system can print out both maps and a textual lists of addresses, using AA 1:200,000 digital map data for the map displays. This is another product available from Kingswood MapMechanics.
They can now also amend orders in real time, interacting directly with BOC’s corporate database. “This is a particularly significant development,” Gareth Arnold says. “It means changes made on a given day will directly affect the delivery schedule for the next day.”
Sureflow delivery frequencies are fixed in advance with each customer, and replenishment is calculated automatically by the SAP system. However, the SMILE system introduces a new system of colour-coded alerts to notify territory managers if customers might run out of product before the next scheduled delivery. They also now have the tools to bring deliveries forward or put them back in the light of this knowledge.
“The system encourages SSPs to check the forward programme thoroughly at least once a week,” says Gareth Arnold. “They can now look up to sixteen weeks ahead. It’s transformed the visibility of orders, and the GeoConcept mapping elements add a new graphical dimension to the operation that was never there before.”
Already a version of the SMILE system is being planned for roll-out in a parallel operation in Australia, and the company is also reviewing the possibility of introducing it into other divisions.
“And now we’re planning to use GeoConcept in other ways – for instance, to manage territory boundaries more conveniently and logically.”
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