Better Route Planning Helps Retailer Reduce Costs

Furniture and appliance retailer Brault & Martineau has selected the Mobile Resource Management (MRM) 2.0 solution from Descartes Systems Group to help manage its home delivery fleet. The solutions combine route planning, optimization, tracking and GPS-enabled mobile wireless technology.

“The solution enables us to offer our clients a choice when it comes to delivery scheduling,” explains Pierre Pecquet, vice president, operations and finance at Brault & Martineau. “Being mindful of the importance of time management for today's customer, we have undertaken to procure a solution that will benefit both our company and the general public. By making our delivery routes more efficient, we not only reduce our delivery costs, but we also reduce fleet emissions that may otherwise contribute to the greenhouse effect."

Descartes' MRM 2.0 solutions are designed to help organizations where delivery performance is a critical success factor and managing fleet operations requires highly effective resource utilization. The planning solution allows users to establish logical routes that meet their business goals, provide more flexible delivery choices and help ensure more accurate delivery times.

Brault & Martineau's operations team is focused on providing its customers a scheduled delivery window with estimated time of arrival, differentiating its service to its customers. The vehicle and driver database helps companies determine and manage the total costs associated with servicing their customers.

Descartes' MRM 2.0 solution is being deployed by Brault & Martineau to provide real-time visibility into the status of routes and deliveries. The solution uses real-time, GPS-enabled wireless tracking to determine the status of delivery operations in the field.

Using the solution, Brault & Martineau hopes to optimize routes to help ensure on-time delivery, use fewer trucks to handle more deliveries, provide scheduled delivery windows for customers and gain real-time visibility into delivery status for dispatch and customer service operations.

Source: http://logisticstoday.com/