A one-off routing and scheduling exercise, performed on a project basis by TruckStops supplier MapMechanics, has proved a vital component in helping haulier G Easton & Son to secure a revised and enhanced bulk milk collection and delivery contract in eastern England.
“The MapMechanics people were fantastic,” says managing director Andrew Easton. “They already had a good grasp of the milk logistics market even before we started the project, and they took particular pains to address the specific details of this particular operation.”
The exercise came up when the “milk fields” covered by the company were altered and expanded, and hauliers were invited to put forward tenders for running a revised service. The team at G Easton realised that the task of modelling the proposed operation demanded the use of a powerful routing and scheduling system, and decided there simply wasn’t enough time to adopt and implement one before the tender date.
“So we asked around, reviewed the software market, and liked the sound of MapMechanics. And the managing director, Mary Short, came up to see us in Norfolk at very short notice, which impressed us.”
The MapMechanics team took sample data supplied by the client, and used TruckStops to model a proposed distribution plan for the new network. This convinced the client that G Easton could handle the new contract within the required parameters, and helped cement the deal.
TruckStops, the world’s most widely-adopted routing and scheduling system, can be applied either in this strategic planning role, or to perform day-to-day fleet scheduling, using different delivery data each day.
Whichever approach is required, TruckStops users generally buy a software licence outright and implement the system themselves. However, MapMechanics also offers the opportunity for users to commission modelling exercises by its own specialists on an ad hoc basis, and says this is becoming an increasingly popular option. The project approach keeps users’ up-front investment to a minimum, while at the same time enabling them to benefit from MapMechanics’ years of experience in getting the best out of the product.
“I realise we could have bought a full TruckStops licence and done the modelling work ourselves,” says Andrew Easton. “In fact TruckStops is one of the most keenly-priced packages of its kind that we have ever encountered.
“But we decided it would be much quicker and more practical to go to the experts and let them do the job for us. There’s no substitute for experience.”
MapMechanics’ Mary Short adds: “In this kind of project work, we simply act as an extension to the company in question. We listen to their requirements, then save them time and trouble by applying our detailed knowledge of TruckStops to produce a solution that matches their stated objectives as closely as possible.
“The company retains all the decision-making powers; we don’t tell them how to run their business. They define the requirement, and we provide them with the means to analyse and meet it.”
G Easton is one of the longest-established bulk milk hauliers in Britain, and one of only a handful of independent family-owned operators still active in this market. It runs a fleet of nearly 40 vehicles – mostly maximum-weight artics, which are largely ERF-hauled. They are mainly tankers, although there are also some tippers.
The company collects milk from farms throughout East Anglia, the East Midlands and Lincolnshire, operating from various points throughout the region, and delivers to dairies, milk processing plants and food manufacturers over a wide area of southern and eastern England. The head office is at Bunwell, Norfolk.
All milk is collected and delivered on the same day, and is carried in insulated articulated tankers. Scheduling efficient journeys is a particularly complex and demanding task, since it is necessary to reflect time windows and capacity constraints throughout the operation, and ensure that both collections and deliveries fit smoothly into the available drivers’ hours.
Members of the G Easton management team spent two periods of ten days at the MapMechanics headquarters in west London, working alongside MapMechanics staff to ensure that the result reflected the nuances of the operation as accurately as possible.
Initially the MapMechanics team modelled the proposed distribution service from the Lincolnshire base, since the operation from here would be less complex than the one from Norfolk. Later, however, the Norfolk operation was also tackled.
“The data we fed into TruckStops included details of producers, volumes, delivery points and timings,” Andrew Easton says. “Not only was the basic operation complex, but we also had to produce several different schedules – for instance, to deal with weekdays and weekends. In all we had to come up with six different operational scenarios. Whilst we might have done it once on a manual basis, and then averaged out the results to deal with the other scenarios, we simply couldn’t have done it on a detailed basis six times over. Using TruckStops was the right decision – I have no doubt about it.”
He praises the tenacity and diligence of the MapMechanics team. “We worked them really hard. There were times when three or four of their staff were involved at the same time. They accepted everything we threw at them, and tackled it all with good grace.”
Since the routes on the resultant milk collection contract are relatively fixed, Andrew Easton says, there is no immediate requirement to re-optimise the operation with TruckStops on a
regular basis. “If we do need to re-jig our routes, we might ask MapMechanics to do further modelling for us, or we might buy a software licence at that point and start using it ourselves.”
He concludes: “Without TruckStops, we couldn’t have concluded the tendering process, and wouldn’t be running the revised operation that we have today. That speaks for itself.”
|
