For many parents, it’s difficult for them to watch their 16-year-old son or daughter drive away from the house for the first time — unsupervised and unafraid. As funny as it sounds, it might not be far-fetched to say that many jan/san distributors experience a similar sense of trepidation whenever they see their delivery trucks embark on their daily routes.

Hundreds of questions invariably bombard distributors back at the warehouse as they await any bad news that might arrive from a customer or a driver. Will there be bad traffic? Will the driver get lost? Will he take his time? Will products arrive late? Will there be enough time for all the day’s routes? Should more (or less) stops have been assigned for a certain driver’s route?

These and other concerns used to haunt Shelley Riha, president of AmSan’s Nogg Chemical branch in Omaha, Neb. That is, until she and her director of operations invested in routing software.

“Software vendors usually mention route efficiency — the ability to select the quickest path for each series of deliveries — as the biggest benefit that comes from investing in routing software, says Riha. “Generally, we load up a truck with enough product for several stops, and the software will tell us when the driver should be back, in addition to the most direct route.”

For Nogg Chemical, it only took a day or two for Stan Beckner, director of operations, to enter all the appropriate information — distances for each customer location, average orders for each customer, etc. — before he could start using it to leverage various benefits for the company.

“Before the software, I actually had our drivers manually assign their own routes every morning before they went out,” says Beckner. “Then, when we started using the software, we saw four main advantages that were apparent right away.”

Those advantages included: delivery time, operations knowledge, route authority and driver accountability.
Time Is Money

According to Riha, there are two big ways that routing software can save a distributor time, which leads to quicker (and more) deliveries, a better reputation with customers and higher revenue overall.

“Routing software salespeople always tell you that it’s how deliveries are routed — by taking the most-direct route — that saves you the most money,” says Riha. “But, the reality for our company was that we were already taking fairly direct routes, because our drivers were pretty knowledgeable about our customer locations, so that only saved us a little time and money.”

What proved to be a major financial boon to Nogg was having an accurate time frame in which to monitor each route.

“Our route size is fairly large — probably bigger than most distributors,” says Beckner. “We might hit 30 stops on a route. With that kind of route, we were never exactly sure when we could expect the driver to return. Now, with the software, we can predict fairly accurately when to expect him back.”

Those daily predictions help warehouse employees know how much time they have to set up the next loads. They can also place inventory that’s going to be picked up in a strategic location, so that the truck arriving first will have quick access to the most pressing deliveries.

“There’s another way that routing software saves us time,” adds Beckner. “Prior to using the software, we had to manually file each delivery by invoice, one at a time. It took a long time, because we were filing hundreds of invoices per day. Now, the software allows us to file by day, because we can just punch all the delivery information into the computer.”

Of course, unpredictable events do occur that can throw a route off its predicted time frame. “With any delivery — especially in a big city like Los Angeles — you have myriad obstacles to overcome,” says Harry Babb, vice president of corporate operations for Waxie Sanitary Supply, San Diego.

Some delivery locations require such complicated routes and times that it’s almost impossible for software to give an accurate prediction.

“If you’re delivering products to an airport in L.A., for example, you have to be cognizant of security issues, long waits, traffic issues, etc.,” he says. “By the time you actually make the delivery, you could probably have made three or four deliveries to other locations.”

And he’s right. Good routing software enables distributors to not only set a time frame that is based on the distance of each customer, but it also allows managers to determine how many stops each truck can make on a given route, and, therefore, which product loads should be allocated to which trucks.

A Jan/san Supply Snapshot
Aside from making specific routes more efficient, routing software can also aid in overall business improvement

“With routing software, it’s possible to go back on the database and analyze any particular day,” says Beckner. “It gives us a quick snapshot of what our business looks like on a daily basis, and [allows us to] pinpoint any distribution problems.”

Beckner found that some heavily loaded trucks went great distances to make only one or two deliveries. The routing software now helps him identify which routes need to be shortened (usually those with large orders, or to customers in isolated areas), and which ones need to be lengthened (a series of small orders, for example).

“We found that some rural areas did not warrant a stop with a full-size delivery truck,” he says. “We were able to change up the routes or send a smaller truck to those areas to increase our efficiency.”

Before Nogg Chemical invested in routing software, it averaged about 10 routes per day with as many as 30 stops each day. Now, with the routing software in place, the company averages between 13 and 15 routes per day, and drivers still make the same number of stops — on average — each day.

“It really does make the most sense for big companies, because you have to be running a certain number of routes per day in order to make it worth purchasing the software,” says Riha.

Also, the bigger the distribution operation, the more difficult it is to coordinate all those routes, says Babb.

“At Waxie, we own more than 80 vehicles that we operate for our deliveries, and we definitely have to use a good software package that allows us to make optimal use of those 80 vehicles,” he says. “Some of the smaller distributors — they can probably manage a lot of their routes without investing in too much technology.”

Who’s In Charge?
While, it’s true that routing software is critical for large operations, it’s also possible for smaller distributors to benefit, says Beckner.

“Even with small distributors, there’s usually some discussion among the drivers about who will go on which route,” he says. “With our routing software package, we took out that whole debate. We just got rid of it, because everyone had to follow the projected routes from the system.”

In Beckner’s opinion, that’s the biggest advantage to a distributor: regardless of whether it has all the bells and whistles of real-time tracking or an instant truck locator, routing software is a benefit because it causes every driver to buy into one system.

Without routing software, drivers usually drive the system, make major decisions and collect overtime pay for long deliveries. “Sometimes they would take a long time on their routes, but we had no way of knowing if the reasons for the overtime pay were good or not,” says Beckner.

A standardized, computerized system helps everyone be on the same page and know what’s expected.

Keep Them Accountable
Drivers — even good ones who take the shortest, quickest routes whenever possible — need to know that they’re accountable, says Babb.

“Our drivers are accountable to our company and our customers, but they’re also accountable to following certain regulations,” he says. “Keeping accurate records electronically allows us to be accountable for what happens on every delivery.”

In California, where the majority of Waxie’s sanitary supply branches operate, trucks must be careful to follow both federal Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations and state California Highway Patrol (CPH) codes.

The CHP has a reputation for being strict. There have been distributors who have not followed CHP codes and they’ve had their business operations shut down, he adds, says Babb.

“Every state has somewhat different regulations, but they aren’t too dissimilar because they’re generally guided by DOT,” he says. “We deliver from Denver west, so we have to keep extremely accurate records for all those states, and that can’t all be done manually.”

But just as drivers can be held accountable to governmental regulations via routing software, it also allows managers to make sure they are being accountable to the interests of the company, says Beckner.

“It’s easy for drivers to choose a local route for the day and just stop at home for lunch, or chat with some friends who are free during that time,” he says. “We don’t want to be overly strict, but the employer needs to know that the drivers are getting paid to do their job. Routing software uses all the necessary information to give that time frame, so they know when we expect them back.”

Naturally, drivers want to be trusted, and they like to have a say in what routes they take, so there is always an adjustment period before the drivers see that the software benefits the company, adds Beckner.

“We’ve been using routing software for 10 years — we started about four years before we joined AmSan, when we were independently owned — and there were definitely some complaints in the beginning,” says Beckner. “Drivers said that this route wasn’t very good or that one needed tweaking, but we used their feedback to make the software work even better.”

“For most jan/san distributors, routing software can bring major benefits, no matter what the initial obstacles are,” says Riha. “It’s just a matter of looking into a tool that can bring efficiency.”

ON SITE

What’s in the Lab? The Supply Chain
Texas A&M University’s Industrial Distribution Program has long been a well-known institution of distributor education. Now, the program brings together supply-chain executives and information technology providers to “test, demonstrate and create new methods” at the Supply Chain Systems Laboratory (SCSL).

By partnering with technology providers — IBM, PeopleSoft, Siemens and Intuit Eclipse are a few — SCSL can bring cutting-edge technology research about the supply chain to interested distributors.

SCSL is still rather new, but organizers plan to provide an array of resources for distributors — from educational programs to research solutions to business tools.

Start Researching Routing Software
When distributors are researching routing-software providers, there are numerous companies to compare. A good provider to start with, however, is Expertek Systems, the Marlborough, Mass.-based creator of such popular programs as RoadWizard and MobileWorks. Distributors can find more information about the company and program descriptions at Expertek.

In addition to routing-software programs and products, Expertek also consults distributors in improving their warehouse efficiencies in relation to working with delivery vehicles.

The All-Jan/San Site
Industry statistics, events, news and analysis are all available to sanitary supply distributors at their one-stop website for information: CLEANLINK.

In addition to distributor insights, get news for your customers and your suppliers, too.




POSTED ON: 3/1/2005