Case Studies

Vehicle Scheduling
Saint-Gobain Construction Products SA
Previously, transport planning/scheduling and vehicle utilisation was done on a decentralised basis.
OPSI was selected as the solution that would support a centralised planning process, and improve core SGCP operations areas. OPSI helped the client achieve the key project objectives, namely:
- Reduced transport cost per ton delivered, through consolidating loads from multiple sites to customers, and improved vehicle utilisation/sharing.
- Improved control of transport costs and assets, through a more automated process, with detailed shipment data (including geo-coded customer site locations with travel distances/routes)
Previously transport planning/scheduling and vehicle utilisation was done on a decentralised basis with each plant or site of SGCP South Africa having dedicated vehicles. Each site used to compile daily transport routes and schedules manually. As a result of the complexity of the manual process of and visibility all requirements/orders, transport loads could not be optimised across the various sites and fleets.
A transport planning and optimisation solution was proposed in order to address those issues.
?The Transport Optimisation & Planning Solution (TOPS) had to replace the manual process with more quantitative data and measures; and it had to ultimately save on transport costs for SGCP
Project objectives:
- Reduce transport costs
- Maintain/improve customer service
- Process optimisation
- Transparency/visibility of transport management information
- System controlled transport rates
- Transport transactional accuracy
- Scenario analyses capabilities
The steps in the TOPS project were:
- The project design started in October 2009 and the first site went live in March 2010.
- On-site training was provided during the design, development and implementation phase, with hand holding and on-site support from November 2009 to September 2010. Training at each Lightweight Building Solutions (LBS) depot was also provided countrywide with each rollout.
- Master data was gathered and input into the PLATO system to configure the model with SGCP’s business rules and restrictions.
- The designed solution was built, tested (first in-house, then User Acceptance Tests (UATs) with client) before going live at the first site.
- The solution is currently live at the 9 SGCP primary manufacturing sites and all 10 South African LBS depots
- All project objectives as specified above were met.
- A increase in co-loading between the various business units in Saint-Gobain was achieved.
- Greater visibility and control of transport costs and operational performance
The next steps at Saint-Gobain are to train the users on performing simulation work using OPSI’s PLATO system, and to implement the second phase of the TOPS solution.