US logistics leader, McLane Company, has selected Paragon Software Systems’ market-leading routing and scheduling technology for its US operations. Having made the decision to replace its existing software McLane opted for a Paragon solution to plan the movement of over 1,100 vehicles making an average of 7,000 drops per day throughout the US. Making deliveries to over 50,000 retail stores, including Wal-Mart, K-Mart and 7-Eleven, McLane turned to Paragon as its supplier of choice.
As a pioneer within the US retail grocery business, McLane Company has over 100 years of experience in wholesale distribution. Servicing a wide range of organizations located across the country, McLane identified the need to replace its existing routing and scheduling software with one capable of handling the scale, constraints and seasonal fluctuations of its operations.
Paragon software is now relied on to carry out the twice-yearly re-route of all McLane Company’s grocery distribution routes. In addition to taking order management information, producing routes and publishing the updated plans back to the McLane host system, Paragon’s routing and scheduling software also gives added flexibility. The software is highly configurable and can take into account the wide range of operating constraints, service offerings and transportation options that need to be handled in calculating routes and schedules. For example, the system handles the added complexities of both one and two-man routes, with different driver hours and loading/unloading times, multiple deliveries to individual stores across the week, and time windows for both dispatch and delivery.
With Paragon software now at the heart of this extensive operation, McLane is seeing significant time savings. “Our previous system could not handle many of our real-world constraints and we had to spend weeks manipulating the schedules to make them workable”, comments Jason McCourt of McLane Company. “With Paragon’s routing and scheduling software managing the re-route, we can now generate automatic solutions that we can rely on to be achievable in practice and meet our efficiency goals. In addition, we have the added benefit that the whole process is far less time consuming than before.”
With order volumes increasing dramatically at certain times each year – Easter, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas – McLane Company can now use Paragon’s routing and scheduling software to cope with the massive increase in demand experienced at each of these times. By running the increased volumes through Paragon, McLane can quickly and easily identify how the schedules should be amended, for example, by ensuring that all existing vehicle loads are fully utilized and adding extra trips with additional driver shifts to ensure that delivery demand is met.
Having tested a range of software options using live data McLane Company’s decision to introduce Paragon’s routing and scheduling technology into its operation was made on the strength of the software’s extensive capabilities as well as the company’s partner potential. “Ultimately our choice was an easy one,” comments Jason McCourt. “Paragon was the only routing and scheduling supplier combining all the key attributes we were looking for in a long-term partner: a comprehensive software offering that had the flexibility we needed, exclusive focus on the routing and scheduling sector, depth of experience and independence.”
“We are delighted to have McLane Company join our ever-growing list of industry-leading clients,” adds William Salter, Paragon’s CEO. “As an independent company it is our unwavering commitment to the routing and scheduling sector and our understanding of the global marketplace that has enabled us to provide McLane Company with a comprehensive and reliable software solution that can be used throughout its US operation.”
