Westland Horticulture Chooses OPSI Systems’ PLATO to Power its Supply Chain
OPSI Systems’ Strategic Partner in the UK and Ireland, K3 Business Technology Group, to provide the Syspro framework for their new corporate information system
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA and DUNGANNON, NORTHERN IRELAND – 9th August 2007:
OPSI Systems (www.opsisystems.com), a leading provider of vehicle routing and scheduling software, in partnership with K3 Business Technology Group (www.k3btg.com), a global leader in providing next-generation enterprise software for businesses, today announced that Westland Horticulture Limited (www.gardenhealth.com) has chosen OPSI Systems’ PLATO as a key component of Westland’s Supply chain hub. Westland is a brand leader in the provisioning of composts, plant foods, lawn treatments, and the famous Unwin Seeds brand. PLATO is to be fully integrated with the existing Westland systems and with Syspro, to be provided by K3. PLATO will manage the entire transportation process from order inception to financial administration of hauliers and will provide powerful scheduling and optimizing functionality.
Syspro from K3 is supplying Westland’s new corporate information system, which is a 100-user system that is being installed at two Westland sites, in Dungannon Northern Ireland and Alconbury Hill, Cambridgeshire, and will amount to an investment approaching £700K. OPSI Systems’ PLATO is to be utilized as a complete transport management system to complement the order-management, forecasting, warehouse-management and financial-administration systems. Westland cited the sophistication of the OPSI and K3 technologies, the ability to customize PLATO and Syspro to their specific requirements, the quickness in implementation, and the responsiveness and stability of both OPSI Systems and K3 as their primary criteria in making their decision .
PLATO is being implemented at the Dungannon and Alconbury Hill sites to build optimal loads using sophisticated algorithms that honour operational and physical constraints. PLATO optimizes service performance by efficiently procuring transportation using haulier rating information and on-line load publication and maintains up-to-date load statuses by retrieving vehicle allocations as well as despatch, delivery and proof-of-delivery information directly from the warehouse. PLATO schedules both internal fleets and those of contracted hauliers, which are rated according to tariff-history and performance on specific routes. PLATO decides automatically on the best available haulier and publishes the trip information. The haulier is notified of, and responds to a published trip via a web interface, email, SMS, or phone/fax. Haulier contracts as well as tariff structures are managed by PLATO in order to allocate accurate transportation costs and revenue information.
PLATO will enable Westland planners to more efficiently process trips, thereby escalating the number of loads that can be handled from our existing facilities – increasing the average income per day. On top of that, it is anticipated that PLATO will significantly decrease the average time in which Westland trip planners are able to complete a trip schedule – adding to the bottom-line savings for the company. In short, PLATO was selected for its ability to streamline the entire supply chain process for Westland – by making the process easy for all parties involved (planners, 3rd-party hauliers, despatchers, etc.) and by better utilizing the existing manpower – adding up to tremendous savings for the entire organization.
For more information, please contact:
www.opsisystems.com
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Westland Horticulture ® www.gardenhealth.com |
About Westland Horticulture
Westland has been at the forefront of product innovation and development since its establishment in 1988. In August 2004, Westland purchased two of the oldest and most recognisable gardening brands - Unwins Seeds and S.E. Marshall & Co (mail order division). We believe that the strong combination of all the companies will make a significant impression in the gardening market. Westland is committed to continuing to provide the quality that people have come to know us for. And not just quality of product, but also quality of service and quality of innovation. A leading-edge position that we can maintain thanks to the calibre of our employees, our technically advanced production facilities - the most advanced in Europe and also due to our presence in gardening outlets throughout the UK and Ireland.
About OPSI Systems
Established in 1997, OPSI Systems is headquartered in South Africa, with offices in the US and Australia and currently supplies best-of-breed logistics software to customers in over 10 countries. OPSI's key accounts include SAB Miller, Coca Cola (ABI), DHL (Exel), Air Liquide, Diageo, Reckitt Benckiser, Clover, Barloworld, British American Tobacco, BP and many more.
