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Environmental studies Distribution studies for research and education
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Animal food delivery. Operational delivery of animal food from 12 factories to 5000 farmers. Planning had to consider special vehicle restrictions and the detailed road network to farms. At several factories there was a unique product, so planning also had to consider product types. A bespoke icon system was made to optimise visual overview of planning situation. A link was made to existing ERP system following DPS ASCII standard format. Considerable saving was made in staff time for planning and distance for vehicles.
Collection of animals for slaughter.
Collection of corn from farms for processing.
Collection of agricultural waste and animal by-products
Delivery of seed to farms.
Delivery of eggs to retailers.
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Supports management on tenders.
Analyse supply chains.
Analyse fleet size and composition.
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Design of advanced distribution operations
with just-in-time collection and delivery demands.
International supply network optimisation.
Planning of manufactured vehicle distribution to dealers.
The company uses LogiX capability to import orders from ERP system.
Coordinates for dealers were created with LogiX Import module
that uses automatic geocoding. This functionality reads an
address file and recognises coordinates from address text
data. An optimal distribution structure is generated with
Auto LogiX with full support of time demands for each delivery.
Operational support services for on-the-road service to
trucks. Car part distribution.
Transportation structure for tyres.
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Distribution of building material for road
construction.
Distribution of tiles from multi-site production facilities.
A multinational building material supplier bought three
former competitors in one country, used LogiX to analyse new
transport structures and are now using the system operationally
to optimise daily coordinated planning from the three production
sites that now work together as one group. A connection to
the company's standard ERP system is made that reads order files
into the vehicle routing system.
Distribution of construction material to retailers.
Just-in-time distribution of cement. Mineral inspection service. Pavement construction.
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Supply chain consulting.
Distribution consulting.
Study of effects from new roads and bridges.
Environmental studies.
- LogiX is used by a variety of logistics and management
consulting companies. The LogiX system is available on
special terms for consultants that include education and
training of computer-based vehicle routing and scheduling systems.
Multi-lingual support is given via the worldwide organisation
of DPS consultants.
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Milk collection from dairies.
Milk delivery to retailers. Detailed operational
planning and optimisation for distribution of dairy products
in cities.
Strategic and tactical design of delivery structure for
delivery of diary products in nationwide network.
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Storage, transport, distribution and disposition
of material.
Transport of personnel with full control of time
aspects.
Operation and disposition of facilities and services.
Medical and health service support.
Scheduling of complex logistic operations with full
operational possibilities.
Design of support organisation structure.
Schedule columns and prevent collisions as military
movements are based on a characteristic vehicle mixture of
the column. The time needed to pass a road segment is critical
to prevent collision. LogiX within an intelligent shell provides
and controls all needed information.
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Operational distribution for a brewery.
They use the system both for strategic evaluation and daily
vehicle routing. The routes are different each day because of
the large number of relatively small customers. Much of their
distribution is in city centres and the detail level of DPS
mapping and vehicle routing algorithms is of great importance. Scheduling
must start when 40% of the order data is uncompleted, this
is handled by DPS advanced optimisation system that allows 'add-on'
optimisation at a later stage.
Supermarket with a series of Regional Distribution Centres
in the UK, each operating on a composite temperature basis
i.e. frozen, chilled and ambient products. In fact to maintain
the 'chill chain' they have seven different temperature
regimes which are maintained throughout both warehouse and
transport operations. While this group have used vehicle scheduling
products for strategic use for some years, they had never found
a product suitable for daily tactical vehicle scheduling. DPS
worked closely with one of their RDC’s to develop
a tailored system based on the DPS LogiX system,
but including some special features relating to the special
requirements of multi-temperature distribution to retailers:
- Maintaining the 'chill chain' while making
maximum use of 'Transverse Bulkhead' vehicles
- Creating the optimum mix of different temperature regimes
on the vehicles (there is a maximum of three temperatures on
the vehicle)
- Delivering to the stores within pre-defined time
slots, where each time slot may have specific characteristics
i.e. type of vehicle
- Managing the problems created by staff holidays
- Ensure that the Transport Plan is correctly communicated
to the warehouse for optimum manpower planning within the
warehouse
By carefully interfacing both pre- and post-scheduling, the
LogiX general purpose scheduling product can be adapted for
the highly specialised area of retailing. Scheduling systems
can be developed for tactical use, providing there is a partnership
between developer and retailer (and the developer understands
logistics in addition to technical development). The system
has been integrated into the IT data system by taking demand
system from the 'main' system and returning an 'allocated'
for optimum vehicle use.
Bakery distribution. Several companies use LogiX
to optimise bakery distribution. The system's open structure
allows route manipulation in high detail, and automatic planning
is made taking customer/driver relations into consideration.
Nationwide fruit distribution. Tactical planning using
LogiX user-friendly Excel file import allows the user to do
a large-scale study of nationwide distribution system consisting
of several terminals.
Coordinated distribution network. A city distribution
network that handles returned goods and product types in operational
planning.
Food distribution from multiple sites. One of the
largest chains in Sweden with over 1600 outlets uses several
copies of LogiX for strategic and tactical optimisation of distribution
flow. The stores are supplied from a series of Regional Distribution
Centres, each of which use LogiX for detailed planning.
LogiX was chosen partly because of the strength of its tramping algorithm,
which creates extremely efficient routes in a complex 'collection
for onward delivery' scenario. The strength of DPS local Swedish
support was considered extremely important in the choice of
vehicle scheduling system.
Frozen food distribution. Operational delivery planning
of frozen food. The company has been expanding
for many years. A large-scale ERP project has been implemented
to meet the increasing demand of IT support for all operations.
The LogiX vehicle scheduling system is integrated with the ERP system
through a bespoke interface, capable of handling the dynamic
planning scenario that staff face every day.
Tobacco distribution.
Two weeks fixed route structure. Construction of
a fixed route schedule, delivery frequencies were studied and
alternative scenarios and a sensitivity analysis was performed.
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Bed distribution.
Office furniture distribution.
Furniture distribution linked to production. Many
companies use LogiX for furniture distribution linked to their production system (two separate suppliers in
AS400 environment). The unique open structure of LogiX allows the
distribution optimisation to feed into production planning.
Advanced geocoding functions allow operational planning of
new customers. The geocoding system in LogiX import creates
coordinates from the customer address file in the AS400 system.
The operational planning takes individual order restrictions
into optimised routes. Order/customer restrictions may contain
time restrictions and priorities.
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Realise optimal interaction between expedition
and service engineers for electronic equipment like copiers
and computers. On delivery, the equipment must be installed by
highly skilled engineers. There is a lot involved to have the
right equipment and the right skills at the customer’s
side available at the right time.
Benchmarking of distribution system, that allows
detailed study of distribution centres at large scale European
level as well at local country levels. The LogiX system gives
a detailed cost picture helping the user to identify limitation
factors.
Daily distribution of electronics components.
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Steel distribution with high-quality delivery
service. Selection of depot structures and tactical planning
to meet a high service demand with optimisation of costs for
drivers and vehicles. Reduction in the number of vehicles.
Distribution of pharmaceuticals. Operational planning
of distribution to hospitals and pharmacies meeting exact
time demands unique for each transport order.
European Supply Chain for major fabric manufacturer
that was undertaking a review of their European Supply Chain.
As part of the process, tenders were invited from third party
logistics suppliers. Our client, a blue chip organisation,
asked for help with preparing warehousing and
transport options to critically review the tender document
and design an integrated European logistics operation. This
was to include a pan-European transport operation and the
design of four warehouses. This had to be achieved against
a background of extremely tight deadlines that needed comprehensive
site visits.
Packaging distribution from production plants. Import
of order files from ERP system and direct geocoding
in the import module to LogiX. Orders can have priorities
depending on customer status and order size.
Transport of products into assembly. Detailed
planning of orders either directly or via a terminal. The system
can handle complex just-in-time scenarios and allows
exact time control of both collections and deliveries. The optimisation function finds coordinated efficient
routes that meet the demand from the production schedules.
The detailed and precise vehicle routing allows
sequence control of production. The time scale for the planning
can be strategic, tactical or operational. Bottlenecks will
be exposed with their consequences.
Building of fixed route structure from distribution centres.
Construction of a fixed route schedule with detailed study
of product types. Manipulate scenarios via MS Excel.
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Coach holidays. Providing optimal customer service to travellers
who have booked a coach holiday. Thanks to accurate planning
the customers are provided with the exact pick-up location and
departure time long before departure. The delays at transfer
points are minimised.
Disabled people. Saves money on operational planning of disabled people
and provides great service. Thanks to strategic and operational
use of the system is the transport of disabled people from
their houses from and to day-care centres largely improved.
School buses - tactical school bus planning. Routes are precise enough
to be a base for invoicing the transport. Exact time schedule
is given to parents.
Secure prisoner transport. Have optimal control on process and safety of transport
of prisoners to and from prisons, police stations and courts.
As demands and many restrictions must be granted, centralised
vehicle scheduling was needed but complex. Using the software interfaced
with modem and fax, scheduling is performed overnight and
everyone involved finds detailed information on their
desks early morning. This user has 11 copies of LogiX for
their operations.
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Fuel distribution. The Dutch subsidiary of a renowned logistics
operator needed help in developing a proposal for fuel
distribution from six refineries around Germany. Options
were required to model different aspects of the operation. The
need was from annual delivery data, to synthesise a typical
week’s information for the refineries. To model the operation
'as is', to review the operation and re-model, and
to incorporate work study standards and re-model. The solution
was based on the multi-compartment version of LogiX to undertake
all modelling exercises. This was to ensure that product incompatibilities
were adhered to and that the vehicle configurations were correctly
considered. Knowledge of the fuel industry together with statistical
time series analyses were used to accurately synthesise a typical
week's activity. This was then broken down into days of
the week by using random number generation and statistical
sampling techniques. The resultant schedules and resource levels
were proven to be 99.4% accurate.
Chemical products. Pan-European distribution chain of chemical products, creating and analysing a cross-border transport network.
Industrial gases. Distribution of industrial gases with advanced supply-pricing
model that allows the system to take decisions about optimal
supply point based on product cost. The supply pricing model
is integrated with the main optimisation model of LogiX and
generates vehicle routing systems that consider the full impact on
routes of product prices at different sites.
Dangerous goods. Large-scale routing of dangerous goods that
creates an optimal solution that meets demands from customers.
Improving delivery precision and allowing quality control. Measuring
effects of structural changes of supply chain and allows the
user to minimise distance and cost. Digital road maps with
full information about restrictions for dangerous goods and
fully integrated in the planning and optimisation model.
Tanker vehicles. Planning of tanker vehicles with full consideration of
compartments and restrictions. Lets the user create
and optimise the supply of petrol to petrol stations. Increased
route efficiency reduces time and distance costs (driver and
vehicle) for the entire fleet. Integrated into existing order
system minimise the handling costs of the system and increases
the efficiency of the planning staff. Increased vehicle utilisation
gives savings and minimises environmental impact of transport.
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European post. One of Europe’s biggest post operations
reduced its fleet by over 200 vehicles in a planning scenario
involving more than 1200 vehicles. Using the DPS tramping functionality,
the design of transport structure for over 30 sorting centres,
was relatively easy and done in a week. The customer had tried a competing system with
traditional optimisation methods for three months before giving up and contacting DPS!
UK post. LogiX wins purchase process for national post organisation with over 170 competitors. After the most careful purchase procedure LogiX was selected for large-scale planning operations throughout the organisation.
Courier. Operational courier planning with link to order system
for rapid reactions to planning situation.
Containers. Movements with over 90 vehicles in combined
transport operations. Collect/delivery planning handled
with tramping optimisation allows analysis of transport on
road combined with railroad.
Parcels. Large commercial impact on parcel service as the
customer can be informed, sometimes hours ahead, if any delay
may occur. On order taking the ETA is stored in a database.
Based on actual location (GPS) message the systems does checks
of actual time + estimated driving time still meets the ETA.
This also relieves the dispatchers large as he can easily
control his operation.
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Supermarket. A supermarket chain that uses LogiX to determine
the optimal structure of distribution locations. Using the
unique DPS tramping model that allows exact specification of
collect/delivery structures. The user can run scenarios to determine
the optimal distribution network.
Sales force optimisation that allows full-scale efficient
planning that reduces driving times and increases the time
efficiency of the sales force. Detailed mapping produces itineraries
to new customers.
Jewellery. Transport of jewellery to shops minimising drivers' time
and vehicle distance for transport economy and low environmental impact.
Records. A record store chain uses LogiX with file import
from SOP system. Coordinates for stores were created with
LogiX Import module with automatic geocoding that reads an
address file and recognises co-ordinates from text data. An
optimal distribution structure is generated with Auto LogiX
with full support of restrictions and time demands for each
shop.
Analysis of distribution terminals with Site LogiX
depot optimisation module integrated with route optimisation
system. The system suggests new site allocations added to
the original structure or a completely new site structure.
The system is also capable of designing the fleet structure
allowing the user to define the each vehicle to individual
level.
Electrical retailers using LogiX to optimise distribution
structure and develop service to customers. A target to reach
was to increase the number of customers per route.
Operational planning for large-scale distribution system
that allows handling of return orders into main distribution
structure. The user can also identify orders that are unprofitable
for its own fleet. The system fully understands the road structure
with one-way and turning restrictions as well as a complex
coastline structure.
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Valuable goods transport for operational and tactical
planning. Detailed planning for large scale value transport
using the unique tramping algorithm in LogiX reduces distance
and time for dedicated fleet. The system can handle
the advanced vehicle restrictions scenario and meet complex
restrictions for each customer. The load volume is matched to
insurance restrictions for each vehicle. Tramping allows control
of pickup and delivery scenarios. High value goods can be automatically
routed for direct delivery. File link to order system allows
fast re-planning of planning structure. Excel is used to manipulate
data for studies of large tenders.
Security guards. Operational planning of Security Guards meeting extreme
time planning demands. "Selling Security Guards is
selling time." This fact forces extreme planning demands
at operational level. LogiX optimisation allows planning following
all customer demands but still meeting efficiency demands.
The system is capable of 24-hour planning cycles working with
several shifts. The savings for several customers have been
significant giving a competitive edge being more cost effective
on a market with small margins. As spin-offs from projects
came better documentation of customer orders and information
for salespeople about bottlenecks and synergy possibilities.
Collecting cash from telephone boxes. A well-known
security company have the contract for emptying British Telecom
pay phones throughout Scotland. The current contract
requires that each box is emptied once per month, but the
situation is complicated by the fact that there are then daily
'urgent' requests to empty specific boxes 'out
of sequence'. DPS developed a special bespoke interface
product which will manage this problem much better using the
Priority fields within LogiX to improve vehicle routing and
bring forward collections before the planned date if resources
are available. This also involves technology for barcodes
as a driver manifest with barcode labels for the identification
of each call box needs to be created for each route.
Secure prisoner transport. Have optimal control on process and safety of transport
of prisoners to and from prisons, police stations and courts.
As demands and many restrictions must be granted, centralised
vehicle scheduling was needed but complex. Using the software interfaced
with modem and fax, scheduling is performed overnight and
everyone involved finds detailed information on their
desks early morning. This user has 11 copies of LogiX for
their operations.
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Laundry. Large scale laundry services using DPS
optimisation system to maintain high service level to customers
without increasing distribution costs. LogiX Import system reads
order files from ERP-system with full address recognition.
Paper distribution for multinational company. Distribution
of produced paper is optimised with LogiX to reduce total
transport cost.
- Paper recycling operation. LogiX is capable of
handling mixed scenarios with collection and delivery which
was an important aspect in selecting a vehicle scheduling system for
paper recycling.
Technicians. Customer services organisation that handles planning
for travelling technical staff. The system allows handling
of certain skills for each technician, groups are created
based on skill structure. This data is matched with daily
order situation one day in advance and the optimised planning
meets time demands from individual customers and rest/break-restrictions
for technicians. The result was higher efficiency and lower
cost for technicians. An important aspect was that the automatic
planning always considered the service required by each customer
and produced a plan that actually met all the demands. The
technicians' working conditions were also
much better.
Water controllers using LogiX operationally to create
route for travelling controllers at country level.
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Streamline economic transaction with charters.
As mileage is the cost base for the most international transport,
the transaction and information between shipper and charter
can be simplified and streamlined. Fully interfaced with an
ERP system, LogiX provides all needed distance information
to make the sales- and cost price for the transport.
Strategic use for contract tendering that determines
the optimal structure and analyses bottlenecks. LogiX gives
a 3PL company the ability to work in close co-operation with
potential and existing customers allowing value-added services
like recommendation on how to improve the transportation efficiency.
- Transport co-ordinators use tactical and operational
vehicle scheduling to handle large amounts of transport orders in
the most efficient way and will full manual control. Extensive
graphics and mapping functions allows the user to create
overviews and with build routes directly in the map. Drivers
receive cost efficient routes that follow all customers’
restrictions and demand. Inefficient routes are immediately
exposed.
Operational use for efficient planning of fleet.
Meeting just-in-time demands and maintain a quality control
of the transportation performed. The system allows for detailed
descriptions of orders taking into consideration
important parameters like vehicle restrictions, time-windows
and rest/break regulations. Online geocoding that handles
address data down to house level.
Strategic and tactical HUB analysis that takes actual
vehicle and road network situation in consideration. The system
can also be used to create optimal vehicle structure per HUB.
The vehicle scheduling system includes optional optimisation models
that can create a new HUB structure based on order volume
at each collection/delivery point.
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Waste collection. Planning of waste collection vehicles. Recycling planning. See Service & Utilities.
Global waste management company uses DPS solutions
in several countries to maximise transport resource usage.
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innovative online vehicle scheduling solution: 
