Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/493405
48 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | APRIL 2015 technology D uring the first week of March, icy rain and snow blanketed the Southeast and caused Southeastern Food Merchandisers – a distributor of food-service prod- ucts – to postpone deliveries in some areas. But its restaurant customers in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Ten- nessee and northern Florida couldn't afford to wait too long, as new orders kept arriving. However, by using routing software from Paragon Systems, Southeastern Food was able to reroute deliveries and keep the restaurants supplied. The software took into account historical order volumes and showed managers in advance how the week would pan out. Jason Chestnut, director of operations for the Pelham, Ala.-based company, says he also modeled various what-if scenarios, such as what would happen if drivers would need to reset their hours should deliveries be pushed out to Sunday. "I couldn't imagine doing it without Paragon," Chestnut says. Fleets such as Southeastern Food have to schedule multiple pickups and deliveries per truck each day. Routing software helps keep costs down and maximizes service by determining the most efficient answers to complex decisions. In the past few years, routing soft- ware has become a hot commodity, as a growing number of technology companies are looking to expand their reach in the transportation industry. Three-way integration Southeastern Food has been using Paragon Systems' routing software for about six years. Transportation managers use it daily to plan routes for 20 trucks and periodically use it to redesign routes across the company's network. About two-thirds of its routes recently were overhauled, re- sulting in a cost savings of 15 percent from reduced fuel, mileage and labor, Chestnut says. The software also helps to test vari- ous "what-if " scenarios, such as what would happen if the company were to use more straight trucks instead of semi-trailers. Using smaller trucks and multiple shifts proved to be a better solution, Chestnut says. "We abso- lutely learned that by having Paragon," he says. Southeastern Food has developed its own transportation management software system and uses a mobile communications system from a sepa- rate vendor. Its TMS sends a batch of daily order files with delivery details to the Paragon system. Once the routes are optimized through Paragon, Southeastern Food's transportation managers review them and save them for that day. The route data is sent automatically to the company's mobile computing system for drivers to execute in the optimized sequence. Southeastern Food also uses Para- gon to compare the plan to actual per- formance by using data captured from its mobile system. Managers also can use Paragon at any time during the day to see how the routes are progress- ing in real time, Chestnut says. Built-in routing In some cases, routing takes place di- rectly within a TMS. Carrier Logistics offers the Facts TMS for fleets with multistop operations. Facts comes with a built-in feature, Routronics, designed to reduce mileage by aligning stops in the best order. The Facts system integrates with mobile apps to provide route instruc- in focus: ROUTING SOFTWARE Tying it all together Fleets, tech companies look to capitalize on integrated routing BY AARON HUFF Southeastern Food Merchandisers of Pelham, Ala., uses Paragon Systems' routing software to plan routes for 20 trucks and periodically uses it to redesign routes across its network.