(JUN 2009) THE PROASSIST GROUP IS THE LARGEST provider of after-sales service for mobile telecommunication equipment in the Benelux countries. The ProAssist Group consists of several subsidiaries specialised in providing technical and logistic services as well as insurance and claims services.
Before using Transvision Fleet Planner, ProAssist had a huge wall full of whiteboards to manage the planning of their drivers. As their business grew, thus increasing the number of drivers, they literally ran out of space for whiteboards. ProAssist therefore started to search for an automated system to optimise the planning of time-critical jobs and obtain a transparent overview of all their drivers’ routes and statuses.
The main focus of ProAssist’s activities is their 24/7 customer service, which is applicable to both their after-sales service and their 24/7 courier service. The highest level of service includes the arrival of a driver with a spare phone or a courier delivery within 4 hours anywhere in the Benelux and Germany.
In this connection, ProAssist has entered into Service Level Agreements (SLAs) with the major mobile telecom providers. These telecom providers impose huge penalties if the SLA is not met, so it is obvious that these jobs have the highest priority.
Now with over 50 drivers, this high level of service and very short reaction time is difficult to plan manually. In a dynamic environment, such as after-sales fulfilment, new orders appear almost every minute, and priorities change throughout the day.
With Transvision Fleet Planner, the dynamic assignment of jobs, based on the skills, qualifications and actual whereabouts of the drivers, as well as the priority of the job, is handled fully automatically. As the day progresses, each activity is optimised on the fly, and drivers report the arrival and departure at every stop using their online PDAs. These status messages are processed in real time within the Transvision system, and any consequence of the actual events triggers the background optimiser to re-evaluate the plan.
Hence, with Transvision Fleet Planner all ongoing routes are constantly re-optimised, and jobs are swapped whenever needed. This is done in order to ensure that all deadlines are met, while maintaining as high a level of efficiency as possible. ProAssist is thereby able to deliver a high level of service while still maintaining a significant profit margin.
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