Wincanton delivers innovative solution with Optrak

Wincanton is a European leader in the design and delivery of advanced supply chain solutions. Wincanton operates a contract on behalf of a major petroleum company to deliver packed goods such as cans of oil to garage forecourts and petrol stations, and bulk lubricants to car workshops, dealerships and big manufacturing plants.

"Initially we were not sure if any of the main routing packages would be suitable but we knew that Optrak had an impressive oil and petroleum client base. This was particularly important as we wanted to partner with a specialist supplier whose industry expertise means that they were experienced at overcoming the challenges that we face," commented Ben Young, General Manager.

Daily planning with Optrak

When an order is placed, it gets processed through the Warehouse Management System (WMS), and on to Optrak. Wincanton now delivers all bulk on its own fleet but has the option of using either own fleet, parcel or pallet carriers for packed goods.

The planning process starts in the morning with the pool of available orders, on average 100 bulk and 300 packed. The planner's first step is to use Optrak to highlight small packed orders which are not part of a multiple delivery and to allocate them for delivery by a third party carrier. Larger packed orders are given a lower priority than bulk orders. Optrak uses each carrier's delivery charges for the larger packed goods to determine which to deliver on the core fleet (typically those near bulk delivery customers) and which to allocate to the carrier (distant isolated orders).

One of the most critical constraints that Wincanton has to observe is related to sequencing orders so that pump mixing and contamination rules are always observed.

The planning process now has a high degree of automation. According to Dean Hardy, "By following the steps in the automated Process menu, Optrak allows the planner to spend more time productively rather than manipulating data. The actual planning time has been reduced to less than three hours by a single person per day."

The use of Optrak has certainly been a success story. Young states, "Wincanton continually strive to provide value to our customers. Optrak was the only routing solution that could assist Wincanton with planning simultaneously for packed and bulk products, whilst managing the complexity of mixing and sequencing rules. The software gives us high visibility and control throughout the planning process and this is essential in meeting our service commitments. We are confident that through their investment in an advanced routing solution such as Optrak, Wincanton will continue to offer an innovative cost effective solution."

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