Customer Story:
Flowervision

With a growing client base leading to a rising number of customer orders to manage, scheduling jobs was becoming increasingly difficult. Having one planner with a pen and paper was no longer an option for Flowervision London if they were to continue to expand and satisfy customer needs.

Increased orders resulted in an increased amount of time to plan routes and ensure that the orders were correct; adding pressure to the business as the window to get the orders put together, checked and loaded couldn’t be extended if customer expectations for delivery times were to be met.

In addition, Flowervision London needed a tool that would help them to grow their operations, particularly as they looked to expand into new and unfamiliar locations. Flowervision London had already implemented TomTom Webfleet so were looking for a scheduling and routing technology that would integrate with TomTom to increase efficiencies and reduce duplication of effort.

Flowervision London chose Access Maxoptra to provide the solution they needed. Besides being very simple and intuitive to use, thereby enabling staff to quickly become proficient, the web based nature of the solution meant that it was cost effective and scalable so able to accommodate the growth in the business.

By using Access Maxoptra, the Planning Manager was easily and quickly able to build capacity loads and import these into the system, then see at a glance proposed routes and schedules. Having these visually presented to them, planners can then manually manipulate the routes before printing out manifests for the drivers to begin loading their vehicles. Seeing the expected start and finish time along with the tight integration with TomTom ensures all drivers work similar hours and reduces errors in entering data, as the full manifest is sent directly from Access Maxoptra to the driver’s TomTom PRO device. Therefore, once loaded, drivers can see their route and delivery schedule for the day.

Data from the driver’s TomTom device is also sent back to the central system in real-time. This enables the planner to see any deviations, such as delays from the planned schedule, meaning Flowervision London can keep the customer updated on delivery times. The data that is collected can also be used for intelligent reporting; helping to understand driver performance, compliance with Health & Safety regulations and areas for improvement.

By integrating Access MaxOptra into the business, Flowervision London has seen the following benefits:

• Ensuring that the company meets its expectations to customers of ‘order by 10pm receive by open of business the next day.’
• Reduced need for contact with drivers to find out where they are as they can see real-time status of location of driver on the system.
• Proactive customer service through tracking of their orders and updating of specific delivery times.
• Reduced time drivers spend on manually inputting schedules saving about 20 minutes a day per driver.
• Ability to scale the system to grow with the business.
• Now data is held on driver performance, customer deliveries and other information, Flowervision London can start comparing business performance.

“Customer service is our key business priority and Access MaxOptra worked with us to understand what we do. This resulted in a solution that worked for our business and ensured continuous improvement in our levels of service. Access MaxOptra’s innovative dynamic scheduling capability was able to provide a solution where legacy distribution planning systems had failed.”

Mitch Teitsworth
IT and Technology Manager, Flowervision

Access Maxoptra are currently working with Flowervision London to further enhance their system by using the same barcode readers used to unload the delivery trucks from Holland to measure built delivery capacities.

This will help streamline the planning process by enabling the Planning Manager to assess built delivery capacities quicker, entering these directly into their barcode terminal which will feed the data directly into Access Maxoptra.

By the time the Planning Manager has completed this, the schedules will have already been built owing to Access Maxoptra’s dynamic scheduling technology.