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| Hello and welcome to the twelfth edition of InTransit eq, the newsletter that will be “e”-mailed you on a “q”-uarterly basis. We try to include articles that appeal to our clients and/or our prospects and other friends in the industry. If there is something you'd like to read in future editions please provide feedback. Of course if you are not interested in being included in our circulation list, please unsubscribe where indicated right at the bottom of this email.
On behalf of the Transit team, I'd like to wish all our readers a happy and safe Christmas and New Year. We look forward to sharing more news with you in 2006.
Nicola Williams
Managing Director |
| Client Satisfaction Survey Results |
Thank you to our clients who took the time to respond to our fourth annual Client Satisfaction Survey. At Transit, we are always looking for ways to improve our products and services and your feedback is extremely valuable.
Once again, the overwhelming response we received is that Transit continues to provide exceptional customer service - in fact, we achieved our best ever score of 8½ out of 10: “Solid focus on client’s specific needs is very beneficial”; “Extremely good support and after hours service, all questions answered no matter how minor they are”; “Excellent customer service - particularly thanks to Samantha for her continuous support, extensive system knowledge and professionalism”.
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We also received high praise for the benefits of using Transit Odyssey: “Still believe it is the best system on the market, we hope to increase our use in the near future”; “Excellent decision making tool”; “Allows us to focus on providing high-level customer service through timely delivery, quantity management and KPIs”; “With the large volume of orders and large customer base, scheduling is quick and easy”; “Great product you are supplying to us and the rest of market”.
The constructive feedback was largely limited to issues we are currently addressing, such as our rather out-of-date mapping technology, the long-standing issue of time and distance calculations not taking some bodies of water into consideration, and our lack of comprehensive Help Text.
We are, therefore, very happy to announce that we are in the final stages of negotiations with our new vector data supplier, who we believe has the best data available in the country at an extremely competitive price. We have already used it to produce a test set of time and distance information for Victoria and New South Wales and have proven that issues with bodies of water, divided roads and one-way streets will soon be a thing of the past. The incorporation of this new technology within Odyssey will enable us to develop the best mapping system on the market!
Nicola Williams
Managing Director
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| Transit Odyssey Delivers For Repco |
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Repco Limited is the largest supplier of parts to the automotive aftermarket industry in Australia and New Zealand, delivering to over 430 locations. With an annual freight expenditure of $50 million, Repco was looking for ways to streamline their delivery process and significantly reduce freight costs.
To meet these objectives, Repco identified a need for a highly efficient transport scheduling system to tackle their cost-reduction strategy in two ways:
1. Optimisation of metro pick up & delivery (PUD) pallet freight to replenish retail stock once a week; and
2. Optimisation of metro emergency parcel freight delivered to stores 3 to 4 times per day.
As the company had outsourced the emergency stock runs, Repco wanted to review this process by providing bidding freight carriers with more specific run details to keep costs regulated. In addition to this, and most importantly, Repco also required a solution that allowed them to explore the feasibility of buying their own fleet of trucks to manage the freight themselves.
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Transit Odyssey was a natural choice for Repco’s Transport and Logistics Manager Stewart Spilsbury, who was well aware of Transit’s extensive experience and industry reputation. Odyssey has been instrumental in allowing Repco to make an informed decision with regard to handling the freight themselves. Repco has been able to understand what cost savings they can expect and how many vehicles they would need to purchase by using Odyssey. Stewart is delighted with the project so far and is confident that Repco is making informed decisions: “By doing the modelling ourselves, we’re totally in control of the project - we see all the savings and then decide how we want to move forward. I could not do it without a tool like this”.
Repco has hired a small fleet of trucks to trial the optimised runs in Melbourne. In just one month, Repco is already saving $1500 per week and they expect to see a saving of up to $4000 per week when the company purchases its own vehicles. “Our job is to try and find where we can save money and Odyssey is the tool that’s enabling that to happen, no doubt about that at all”, explained Stewart.
And just how easy was it for Repco to learn how to use the new system? According to Stewart, he was "amazed" at how easy Odyssey is to use: “I thought it would be more difficult, but my staff picked it up really fast. Even I can use it, which is great!”
Christina Kortesis
Marketing Manager
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| Odyssey Handy Hints - Filter related entities |
When you need to edit customers and their matching orders quite regularly, it can be handy to use the ‘Filter related entities’ function. This allows you to have a customer and their matching orders on the screen at the same time for easy editing.
To use this function, open the Customer editor first. Select a customer you wish to edit. Click the ‘Filter related entities’ button as shown in the image. This will open the Order editor and show the order, or orders, relating to that customer.
As you move through your list of customers, the Order editor will update and show only the matching orders for the customer currently selected.
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To turn this feature off, click the ‘Filter related entities’ button again.
If you require further assistance with this function, please call the Client Support Team.
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| FAQs |
What’s the fastest way to see wait time for each vehicle in my schedule?
There are two types of wait time in Odyssey: one is at the customer, which occurs when the scheduling engine determines that it is cheaper to arrive at a customer prior to their opening time, rather than to drive past that customer and come back later; the other is at the depot, where the scheduling engine determines that there is potential wait time at a customer that can be avoided by departing the depot later.
Wait time at the depot for the first trip of the day is shown by a departure time that is after the ‘first driver starts’ time for your base depot. For all other trips, wait time at the depot is indicated by a subsequent trip which arrives after this trip is finished, rather than at the same time. The gap between the first trip’s finish time and the second trip’s arrival time is the amount of wait time at the depot.
The ‘Wait’ column in the Schedule manager and run sheets shows the wait time at individual customers. In order to see the total wait time for each vehicle, you need to look at the ‘Wait time at outlets’ field of the Driver Time Analysis report.
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