Even though fuel prices are down, there are other ways to save money within transportation operations. Paragon’s route optimization software solutions have been proven to cut transportation costs by 20% or more by improving truck route planning processes, streamlining resource utilization, and reducing planning time. Modeling “what-if” scenarios, dynamic route optimization, balanced workloads and telematics to view plan accuracy and real-time responsiveness all lead to more savings in the transportation operation.
Many Paragon Software Systems clients have found multiple savings opportunities besides fuel reduction within their transportation departments from:
- Modeling ‘what-if’ scenarios to experiment with transportation network changes. By locating distribution centers closer to customers, you eliminate miles and save time and money. You can also model for seasonal volume changes, such as holidays, to ensure you have the right amount of trucks and drivers scheduled so you don’t have to use contractors or expedited couriers, which can add cost.
- Dynamic route optimization allows planners to offer cost and time efficient delivery slots at point of order to optimize your truck routes and streamline operations while meeting customer delivery schedule requirements. Using advanced routing and scheduling software provides intelligent route optimization so that companies can reduce their total annual mileage.
- Making truck route plans as accurate as possible to deliver better results. There is no point creating a transportation plan that does not reflect the real world. Utilizing a vehicle-tracking tool and Paragon Route Execution can tell how long it really takes a driver to deliver and/or collect at each customer site. Then you refine planning parameters accordingly. The more accurate your route plans, the more likely you are to achieve savings that can be realized.
- Keeping trucks full by centrally planning complex operations using Paragon Integrated Fleets, which allows you to combine collections and deliveries to cut empty running miles and improve truck utilization. If your drivers could pick up another load on the way back to the depot, then trucks are better utilized. This inter-working of multiple fleets generates route plans with efficient backloads, which increases asset utilization, improves productivity and reduces empty mileage.
- Assigning balanced, legal workloads and optimizing territories with Territory Optimizer, which enables transportation planners to divide their delivery or service regions into compact zones with balanced workloads. Multi Period Planner is a truck schedule tool which allocates multiple deliveries to days, balancing the overall distribution workload across the planning period. It will also ensure deliveries are clustered geographically and that the required period in-between deliveries to the same customer are maintained.
