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Use of computers in road transport
Page 92
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We were most interested to read the article by John Darker "small firms can profit from computers" (CM March 30) and welcome your policy of providing a platform on which the use of computers in distribution planning can be discussed.
As those who have been involved with dtstribution scheduling, usually over short periods, know only too well, the welldocumented, and in some cases spectacular failures of computer schedulers in the midSixties have unfortunately set back the use of computers as an aid, rather than an alternative to transport management by several years.
One point in the article that we do disagree with is, of course, the talk of daily rescheduling as if it were a desirable objective, with no mention being made of the traumatic impact this could have on a transport manager's current "pigeon-hole" system of fixed routes. The savings claimed for rescheduling must, in our experience, be seen in the light of the fluctuating levels of fleet needed from day to day: the efficiency that is lost when drivers have to travel different routes, and the very heavy costs involved in reprocessing orders each day via computer terminals, validating each one before it is transmitted.
As is well known, our own view of the use of computers in distribution is at the strategic and period planning level. We do not think that computers can, or should, replace daily load planners. What they can do, in a way that brings benefits at least as great as those mentioned, is to help to settle the framework which allows for all current requirements — specifically preferenta I client situations — in which the transport manager controls his day-to-day situation.
I hope very much that readers will contribute from their own experiences or thoughts on the use of computers in this critical area of commercial planning. There has not been enough discussion between transport and computer professionals; and from studies we have already done, the impact of EEC regulations is going to be really dramatic for most transport managers, and needs to be assesssed by the end of 1974 at the latest.
PETER M. BROWN.
Chairman, Synergy Bevan Group, Hitchin, Harts.