• Multi Depot scheduling solution cuts transport costs and planning times; £100k annual savings in sub-contracted transport costs
DORKING, SURREY, June 13, 2007 -- Paragon Software Systems' (Paragon's) Multi Depot scheduling solution has been implemented by Anglian Water, part of the Anglian Water Group and one of the UK's leading providers of water and wastewater services, to provide a fully automated vehicle planning system in order to improve efficiencies throughout its operation.
Anglian Water serves some six million industrial, commercial and domestic users throughout East Anglia and the East Midlands and completes around 2,000 sludge tanker collections per week, delivering wastewater products to 25 treatment centers.
Previously, the essentially manual scheduling process took a four-strong team two days to complete each week. "In looking to automate the system, we looked in detail at what the market had to offer," says special projects manager, Les Johnson. "As a result, we selected Paragon's Multi Depot software with Integrated Fleets capability as best-suited to planning and managing our wastewater logistics operations across the region.
"The company offered a strong off-the-shelf package with the right functionality," he adds. "At the same time, Paragon had a reputation as the established market leader, clearly understood what we wanted and, critically, was prepared to support the product and develop it to further meet our demanding requirements, both now and in the future."
Process efficiencies
Implementation was undertaken at the same time as the development by Anglian Water's internal IT team of data capture and data transfer systems, designed to automate the complete end-to-end planning and scheduling process.
"The process of balancing treatment center delivery with collection times and frequencies was highly complex," confirms Paragon support director, Phil Ingham. "In response, our Integrated Fleets system enables all vehicles to be planned as a single integrated resource, irrespective of location."
Previously, Anglian Water had to sub-contract up to 30 per cent of its work to meet regular peaks and troughs in demand. With the scheduling improvements achieved with Paragon, this has been cut substantially and is currently running at around the budgeted level of 18 per cent -- saving the company approximately £100k annually. At the same time, there has been an improvement of around 2.5 per cent in driver performance against budget and planning time has more than halved.
Anglian Water has been delighted with the positive way the relationship has been established. "Our primary focus," says Les Johnson, "continues to be the delivery of high-quality, efficient service for our customers, together with a firm commitment to sustainable development.
"In helping us achieve this, we have benefited from the proactive way the Paragon planning and scheduling package has been enhanced, to meet precisely the unique and demanding requirements of the water treatment industry in general and Anglian Water in particular."
Paragon Software Systems (Paragon) provides software solutions for operations ranging from 10 vehicles based at a single site to hundreds of vehicles running out of several sites. Paragon software is used for routing and scheduling optimization on a daily basis; managing transport resources; rationalizing fixed routes; strategic planning and modeling; scheduling home deliveries continuously as orders are being confirmed; and managing the execution of the transport plan in real time using vehicle tracking technology.
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