| What types of transportation routing and scheduling applications are
supported by your solution? |
| We specialize in multi-stop vehicle routing applications, including fixed route
design, master route design and daily management, and dynamic routing. We
provide solutions for strategic analyses, such as network alignment or fleet
sizing, down to the daily planning and management of shipments and trucks. |
|
| What types of transportation decisions and constraints are handled by your
solution? |
| In general, decisions include size of fleet, network and territory alignment,
shipping mode, day of service, route assignments, route sequencing and
scheduling, and related decisions. Examples of rules and constraints include
customer service time windows, vehicle capacities, driver schedules, workload
balancing rules, and compatibilities or restrictions among fleet resources,
freight, and locations. |
|
| Is your solution internet-based? |
| Yes. Our solution features a state-of-the-art Logistics Portal that serves as a
hub of information, executive financial views, performance metrics, work
standards, planned vs. actual results, and high quality geographical maps. The
Portal is organized in an intuitive hierarchical fashion, enabling a seamless
view of information from high-level corporate statistics down to regional
statistics, daily statistics, and individual routes and customers. |
|
| Do you customize your solution for clients? |
Yes. Transportation planning and optimization is a complex technology requiring
specialized expertise to setup, maintain, and operate. Further, because
transportation routing and scheduling applications vary widely across
industries and companies, we have found that it is better to tailor a solution
to specific needs rather than "shoe-horn" business requirements into inflexible
packaged software.
Tailoring can include the organization and terminology of data, business
processes, metrics, maps, reports, and systems integration approaches, for
example.
|
|
| Is there a visual mapping capability, which includes visual sequencing? |
| Yes. We can provide high quality visual mapping solutions with a number of
different useful views, including sequences, territories, driving directions,
demand information, etc. Results are accessible through a configured web-based
Portal or via emails with picture attachments. |
|
| What process do you use to geocode locations, and to what level of
accuracy? |
Our geocoding service is truly an industrial strength solution, bringing
together several leading technologies and processes into a blended and unified
process. Technologies include address scrubbers, web-based services (such as
that from Tele Atlas), desktop address matchers, business demographics
databases, ZIP+4 files, and even electronic phone directories for address
cross-referencing.
Beyond automated geocoding, we can assist with providing field-GPS collection
approaches and Portal-based approaches where terminals and even the end
customers can provide location feedback.
|
|
| Do you use information about actual roads and road networks while
optimizing transportation plans? |
| Absolutely. We use state-of-the-art digital road networks to calculate precise
transit distances, times, and turn-by-turn driving directions. |
|
| Does your application leverage GPS technology? |
| We can use GPS technology as a feedback mechanism for geocodes, as well as
planned vs. actual analysis and self-tuning for drive times, stop times, and
sequences (in conjunction with handheld application software). We have also
used GPS technology to baseline existing routes as a yardstick for comparison
with optimization. |
|
| What types of onsite support services are provided? |
We provide extensive onsite services, including requirements definition,
benchmarking, work standards definition and calibration, process base lining,
systems integration, field tests and validation, support, training, and other
activities including strategic modeling, best practices roadmaps, profitability
and landed cost analysis, to name a few. Our onsite deployment plan leverages
standardized templates and processes so we can rapidly and effectively deploy
to large numbers of depots or branches.
First, executive buy-in to goals, value delivered, project schedules, delivery
processes, conflict resolution, escalation processes is critical. Our team
works closely with executive management and internal project sponsors to ensure
the project is correctly positioned and monitored at management levels.
Field data accuracy is especially critical, so we work closely with customer IT
and operations teams to ensure addresses, geocodes, costs, constraints, etc.
are correct. Model calibration is also critical, to ensure we have a faithful
representation of actual delivery issues. Our staff performs route ride rounds,
driver and dispatcher interviews, and post-route analyses to ensure the model
and assumptions are as accurate as possible.
Before we perform any route optimization, we first develop baseline models of
existing routes and processes. The results here provide a solid foundation for
measuring value achieved through optimization, as well as assisting in the
calibration of model assumptions and identification of specific constraints,
business rules, or other model issues that must be addressed. Validation of
drive times, stop times, and customer service windows are particularly
important in this step.
Change management processes are important as well, including route adjustments,
driving directions, work standards definitions, automation of previously manual
processes, etc. Our staff works on-site with terminal managers and dispatchers
to ensure new routes and planning processes are deployed effectively.
|
|
| Describe what customer service resources are available. Are these services
available 24/7? |
| As a managed service, our personnel are available around the clock to assist
with any technical issues that arise with either master route design or daily
dynamic customer insertion. Activities may include incident resolution to
strategic modeling support activities. |
|
| How do you integrate your planning solution to client systems? |
We use the state-of-the-art Microsoft BizTalk Server system for enterprise
integration among systems. In general, our system interoperates with other
systems via the following:
-
Web Services (such as SOAP/XML)
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FTP
-
E-mails with/without attachments
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Direct database connections
-
http/https protocols
We can set up information transfer and download processes via BizTalk
Orchestration, which automates the listening, validation, transformation, and
processing of data from external systems.
|
|
| What file types does your application import and export? |
| As a managed service, we can configure the file type formats and schema as
needed. In general, we work with anything from XML documents to flat files to
Excel/Access formats to direct SQL data access. |
|
| What hardware and software components are needed to use your solution? |
| Any computer that can run an internet browser. |
|
| Describe the proposed application installation approach. |
| In general, our systems run out of a data center and do not have to be
installed onsite. We can install our server systems in a premise-based
solution, if desired - specific discussions would be needed here to define the
hardware and software components required. |
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