The Challenge
In the beginning of the 1990s, Aalborg Portland had a fleet of more than 100 vehicles and 18 dispatchers who handled order entry and planning. The company decided that transport costs had grown too high and that it was necessary to initiate a cost reduction process. However, it was important that customer service did not suffer from such cost reductions. As cement is delivered according to the just-in-time principle, delivery accuracy and efficient handling of urgent orders was crucial.
The Solution
As a result, Aalborg Portland decided to implement a system which could support the transport planning process. It was required that the system would be able to cut operational costs, improve the level of customer service, and free up resources in the planning department.
The results
Improved customer service
“When we receive an order, the system immediately calculates which site is the cheapest to deliver from. The system knows all vehicle positions and qualifications at any one time, as well as the vehicles’ distances to the sites. We are therefore able to choose the optimal vehicle for order fulfilment very efficiently”, explains Knud Erik Busk.
Major benefits from implementing the system:
- A reduction in the number of planners from 18 to 4.
- Significant reductions in empty running and a break-up of inefficient and rigid regions.
- Great improvements in capacity utilization.
- Large administrative savings due to process automation.
- Improved customer service through automatic warnings and faster response times.
Learn more
Download the case study and learn about all benefits and results Aalborg Portland has achieved by implementing the AMCS Intelligent Optimisation Solution
