Calor, the UK’s leading supplier of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), is using Paragon’s Multi Depot system to schedule deliveries of bulk gas tanks using specialist crane vehicles, managed by its engineering division, CalorForce. The schedule also incorporates tank collections and relocations. As a result of implementing Paragon Software Systems’ routing and scheduling solution, CalorForce has halved the admin workload of its crane vehicle scheduling operation.
Prior to implementing the Paragon system, the scheduling of Calor’s own two-vehicle fleet took two hours, and the remainder of the tank deliveries were scheduled by various third party haulage contractors in their particular areas. Following experience with the successful implementation of Paragon’s Multi Depot solution for scheduling Calor’s gas cylinder deliveries, CalorForce decided to follow suit and bring more of its crane vehicle operations in-house.
“We saw the capabilities of the software, and realised its features were exactly what we were looking for,” says Tom Badhams, Installation Supervisor at CalorForce. “Even though it’s a relatively small fleet, these crane vehicles are costly to run, so it is very important that we use them efficiently – which is what Paragon software helps us to do.”
He adds that the beauty of Paragon’s Multi Depot system is its ease of use. “The system takes into account the vehicle restrictions and optimises the route accordingly” he says. “It’s very much click-and-play.”
With user training completed, the CalorForce operation has been running Paragon’s Multi Depot solution live for six months. Calor now schedules deliveries for six crane vehicles, which takes one planner the same amount of time as it did to schedule two vehicles prior to implementing Paragon’s solution.
