Wine wholesaler Liberty Wines is boosting its delivery service with an advanced route planning and scheduling system from Paragon Software Systems. The software will integrate with Liberty’s order processing system (Vintner) to speed the planning process. Liberty also anticipates that Paragon’s Single Depot software solution will enable better use of its delivery fleet resources.
“Paragon will enable us to plan more efficiently and effectively, making better use of our vehicle fleet and improving the service to our customers. The street level-mapping option we have selected takes account of road constraints such as one-way streets, no-entries and turn restrictions. This will help us to plan and manage our deliveries with greater accuracy, where timed deliveries to leading restaurants are a key part of our service offering,” says Ben Marriott, Customer Services Manager at Liberty Wines.
Liberty Wines runs a fleet of large delivery vans. About 80% of fleet resources are long-term subcontractors, with some Liberty Wines’ own vehicles and drivers. The new software will maximize their loads and plan the delivery schedules and routes automatically, highlighting where there is spare capacity.
“The majority of our drivers are long-term subcontractors who are paid a daily rate. When we plan manually we can only estimate start and finish of their runs, but with Paragon we’ll have visibility of their workloads,” says Ben Marriott. “We’ll also have the added benefit of knowing precisely which vehicle and driver is delivering each order without searching through paperwork; the information will be available to us at the push of a button.”
Liberty Wines offers a unique customer service that allows customers to place orders at any time of the day or night for delivery the next day. This around the clock ordering is what sets the company apart from its competitors, resulting in as many as 200 deliveries a day. To streamline order processing and fulfilment, the company’s Vintner system will export the order and delivery requirements into Paragon, which will then automatically create the delivery routes and schedules. This information is uploaded back to the order processing system to update the customer records. This also provides accurate data for management reporting on delivery performance.
