TECH IT TO THE LIMIT
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CASE HISTORY: WHITE ARROW
For home delivery specialist White considerably easier than in the old Arrow, route planning has got
days when, as its systems designer Glyn Harrison puts it: "People would sit on the floor surrounded by maps, drawing shapes with felt-tip pens and trying to determine who lived in those shapes."
Harrison has spent more than 20 years with the GUS catalogue subsidiary. As management services controller he has been responsible for introducing technology that enables depot
managers to look at every L • ,P41111b,
street in the UK on high '
esole-)/
resolution colour computer screens The system, known as SMS (Sector Management System) divides each of the company's 37 depots into round sectors and is designed to plan local
deliveries in three-day . cycles. To do this the country 'IN is subdivided into rounds, sectors and neighbourhoods—a sector being a group of neighbourhoods with a driver's round made up of 12 sectors.
The recipe for the system includes a number of standard packages from London software specialist SIA, customised to White Arrow's specifications, plus 200 Ordnance Survey maps scanned into the system.
The lifestyle in each neighbourhood has been analysed to determine exactly how long a delivery will take from the moment the driver leaves the cab a farm will take longer than a terraced house for example. Rounds are categorised as rural, mixed and urban.
Each driver leaves the depot with a calculated 10 hours of deliveries—which can range from 60 to 240 parcels depending on the nature of the round. Inputting the average time from depot to first drop adds a final piece to the jigsaw. This precision has an effect on productivity as the drivers are paid for 10 hours work rather than how much they happen to get done in the time. Reasons for non-delivery of parcels are closely analysed but super-efficient drivers may win-out by completing their rounds in less than 10 hours.
The drivers have been consulted at the planning stage : a bridgeless canal or a oneway street dissecting a neighbourhood may not be apparent on a map.
"The driver is the expert in the area and we've captured his local knowledge in the system; we want him to
A feel ownership of the
round," explains Harrison.
Home delivery drivers are at the end of the chain
RI'
operating vans from depots. Before they become involved the parcels have been barcoded and trunked to a regional sorting centre. They will be further trunked to a receiving depot for local delivery with the barcode ensuring an electronic link throughout. Wembley is the base for the South-east where a depot and a sorting centre share a warehouse built for the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. Here 85,000 parcels are received overnight and this could grow to 100,000 as White Arrow expands its third-party operation—at present GUS parcels still account for 75% of its work.
Ironically once the home delivery drivers are in their vans the communication link is broken. This situation is soon to be remedied with the introduction of in-cab computers monitoring vehicle speed and delivery time. Instructions to leave the new lawn mower behind the third rosebush on the left can be relayed directly to the driver. Big Brother is in the passenger seat.
COSTS: Personal computers at £1,100 plus £900 per high-resolution colour screen. The 200 ordnance survey maps cost .£3,000 plus £10,000 for permission to scan them, £4,000 for the scanning process and an annual licence fee of £3,000.
CONTACT: SIA. PHONE: 071-730 4544.
OFF THE SHELF SYSTEMS
Entry level prices are given where available. Costs, unless stated, are for software only. Users are advised to purchase good quality hardware if they want to ensure that these systems operate reliably
AUTOROUTE
AutoRoute Plus for Windows is a digital map of the British Isles, including more than 30,000 place names. Users select place names and the system plans a detailed route taking into account driving style, (multi drops for example) and preferred types of road. Up to 100 drop-off points for each journey can be planned. The locations can be chosen from the user's own database and can pinpoint locations from postcodes to cities.
The system calculates drivers' hours and expenses and its memory stores and sorts journeys into the best order for driving time and distance.
AutoRoute for Windows is also available on CD ROM. To this can be added MapVision GB, which provides photo quality images down to 1:250,000 of the entire UK. Users can pan and zoom in to specific features such as built-up areas and hauliers could input depots or customer sites. A new product, MapVision Plus for London, was introduced this month. Based on Nicholson's London Guide, it covers 32,000 streets. Users can also search for specific buildings such as museums, stations, pubs and hotels.
COST: AutoRoute Plus for Windows costs £495 on disk or .£595 on Cl) ROM. MapVision GB and MapVision Plus for London are 4195 each. Existing users can
upgrade at a cost advantage.
CONTACT: NextBase. PHONE: 4020 (0784) 421422.
CHRONICLE
The Chronicle fleet be used in conjunction with
various communication Pe lir,— management system can and FU systems both landbasecl satellite including Vodaphone, 9NES Cellnet and Alcatel Euteltracs. yi)rt Tracking and vehicle location are 4111 among the many functions the system offers —others include monitoring of 411■,.4400411110.111011 • Arier:......0"
maintenance intervals, vehicle defects, fuel records, consignment tracking by barcode, drivers' hours records and scheduling by
day, week, month and year. Analysis of performance is possible by driver, vehicle, weight category and depot.
COST: AutoRoute Plus for Windows forms the basis of the system (see above)
with add-on technical facilities for vehicle tracking and monitoring.
CONTACT: Oakrange Engineering.
PHONE: (0709) 542334.
DATATRAK
Securicor's
Datatrak is principally an AVL (Automatic Vehicle Location) System. Radiobased it has set up its own navigation and data communications network around the UK. Users can track the progress of their vehicles 24-hours a day to within 50m of their location, with obvious security advantage& A new product, Route Deviation software, is just being launched which alerts the user by a flashing light in the control room if the vehicle strays from an agreed route or is speeding.
Screen information is based on scanned ordnance survey maps which enable the user to see where vehicles are, where they are going and availability.
COST From 110 per vehicle per week. PHONE: (0793) 500100.
ROADRUNNER
Roadrunner claims to be the first computer system written specifically for the transport industry by a haulier and says it can manage fleets from five to 500 trucks. Users include Exel Logistics and Wincanton.
As well as routeing it offers multiple uses for fleet management with its booking screen at the heart of the system. Operators can judge =0 which jobs are making them money and which are not. Modules are available for traffic management; accounts (it produces invoices, updates VAT, keeps an eye on cashflow); the warehouse and the workshop.
Records are kept of maintenance and MoT schedules. Any information can be printed out for permanent record keeping.
COST: Single user traffic management system from £395.
CONTACT: Road tech Computer Systems. PHONE: (0923) 460000.
TRAFFIC MASTER
This differs from the other systems in that it includes an in-cab unit through which the driver is fed information on traffic flow in the delivery area. Delays and accidents are notified and the driver advised on re-routeing
The unit is about the size of a paperback. Symbols are superimposed on a roadmap indicating the nature of the delay—the driver can call up more information by pressing the relevant "page" which might say, "Range Rover in accident close to Junction 3. Southbound traffic limited to 15mph; northbound at a standstill." (CM 17-23 September 1992)
The system does not fully cover the UK yet it extends north to Stoke and is expected to reach the Scottish border by October.
COST: Rent £30 per in-cab unit CONTACT: General Logistics.
PHONE: (0582) 984414
TRAVELLING SALESMAN
Not very promisingly named as far as the haulage industry is concerned but this new product from BT has route planning at its core. Essentially it finds the shortest and most efficient route when visiting a number of points using an algorithm the application could apply to cable layout in an office building or routeing a fleet of trucks. It can solve a 100-location problem in less than two seconds or one involving 1,000 locations in less than 2.5 minutes.
COST: To be announced.
CONTACT: BT, but the system is not yet commercially available.
El by Patric Cunnane