L.R. Services has automated its distribution planning of 4,000 weekly deliveries to McDonald’s restaurants throughout France with Paragon’s map-based transport optimisation software. The software is delivering major efficiencies by reducing planning time and saving road miles for an extremely complex operation.
L.R. Services is part of the Keystone Foods group of companies. It has been the logistics provider to McDonald’s France since 1989 and is responsible for the delivery of all stock – food, packaging, cleaning materials and ancillaries – to more than 1,000 restaurants from seven regional distribution centres (DC). The company operates around 1500 routes per week from the DCs, served by a fleet of 160 articulated and rigid-bodied trucks.
L.R. Services has to operate under challenging constraints unique to McDonald’s France. These are variable order volumes, changeable time windows for different types of delivery – fresh foods or other products – and different delivery frequencies, making it essential to optimise routing and scheduling. By using a combination of Paragon Multi Period Planner and Paragon Multi Depot software, L.R. Services is able to streamline and simplify its planning processes.
Although other companies within the Keystone Food group also use Paragon products, L.R Services were clear that they couldn’t be influenced by other Keystone operations and their choice of technology due to differing operational constraints compared with their colleagues in the UK and US. So after eliminating several other software products, Paragon was put through a rigorous 130-point check and it demonstrated that it could provide the accuracy and efficiency improvements needed to fulfil their services.
“We must have visibility of the total order volumes for each week, plus the delivery frequency for each restaurant. We also need to be able to integrate different types of deliveries within available time windows; and, to do this manually would be extremely difficult. Paragon automates this planning for us by allocating the volumes to the right days and optimising the trips. This increases efficiency and reduces road miles.” Bruno Thery, Distribution Project Manager, L.R. Services
