Case Study
Building materials specialist Henri Benthack has been using opheo since 2011 and has progressively expanded the solution. Following the introduction of the arrival monitor, automatic notification, tour planning, and digital signatures are now being implemented. Since June 2023, the software has been cloud-based.
Henri Benthack GmbH & Co. KG is a traditional Hamburg-based building materials specialist with over 300 employees. Founded in 1930, the company operates its own truck fleet of approximately 30 vehicles and maintains a warehouse assortment of 8,500 products. Operating from six locations in Hamburg, Lübeck, Grevesmühlen, Neumünster, and Syke, the company is active in four North German federal states.
First Expansion Stage
Jens Bielert, Head of Logistics at the Hamburg-based building materials specialist, still knows exactly why his company chose Solvares Logistics’ transport control center over ten years ago. He particularly values the software provider’s future-oriented approach: “opheo is continuously being developed and always offers us a perspective for further optimization steps,” says Bielert, who introduced opheo as project manager in 2011.
In the first expansion stage, opheo, including the integrated telematics solution opheo MOBILE, was gradually implemented at the locations Hamburg, Lübeck, Grevesmühlen, and Neumünster
implemented. The Lurup branch is centrally managed from Hamburg, while the transport control center in Syke was only introduced in May 2023 – especially since only two vehicles need to be dispatched there. “The activation of the new locations went surprisingly smoothly and quickly,” reports Dennis Kniebel, who has since taken over project management from Jens Bielert. And Fleet Manager Steven Ludwig emphasizes: “Now our ten dispatchers can also cover for each other across locations, without having to leave their assigned workstations.” Against this background, absences due to illness, vacation, or similar reasons could be better compensated without increased staffing costs.
Since 2023, the software has been provided from the cloud. Outages are no longer an issue, even concerning their own servers: Since June 2023, Henri Benthack has been using the cloud solution offered by Solvares Logistics. The scope of opheo’s services has not changed as a result. This is made possible by the use of Azure Cloud’s Virtual Desktop Technology.
The Azure Cloud provided by Microsoft saves customers the costly investment in their own server infrastructure and IT personnel. “opheo is the first software we use via a cloud. This allows us to gain experience for further installations, thereby reducing our hardware costs in the long term,” explains Project Manager Kniebel.
At Henri Benthack, delivery orders are transferred from the ERP system to the opheo transport control center and compiled into optimized tours in the dispatcher’s dispatch cockpit. These, in turn, prioritize orders in the connected ProLogistik warehouse management system and define the picking sequence. The tours are sent via mobile communication to the Samsung tablets mounted in the trucksand processed by the driver.
Current Position Data
Drivers receive order data and delivery addresses via opheo and can be guided to the next destination with the integrated truck navigation. Every achieved shipment status
is documented at the push of a button and transmitted to the central office, along with the current position data. With this information, opheo can calculate the customer’s arrival time, the estimated tour end, and the return time of each driver for every shipment.
In total, opheo manages 27 of Henri Benthack’s own trucks. “In Hamburg and Lurup alone, we organize 60 to 90 deliveries per day in this way, with currently ten trucks and two vans. The individual vehicles complete up to four tours each,” says Fleet Manager Ludwig. In Lübeck, Grevesmühlen, and Neumünster, four to six additional trucks are stationed at each location, planned by two dispatchers per site.
In practice, plan deviations and delays are rare, as Henri Benthack’s logistics team has fed opheo with realistic master data. “In the initial phase, we accompanied our drivers with a stopwatch to obtain the most accurate time values for loading and unloading times, as well as average waiting times at construction sites,” recalls Ludwig. The data thus determined is automatically taken into account by opheo during tour planning.
Transparency with the Arrival Monitor
The actual return times of the trucks are displayed precisely to the minute on the arrival monitors, which operate based on the position data reported by opheo. This allows warehouse staff to prepare for reloading for subsequent tours in advance, pick orders efficiently, and minimize vehicle downtime.
At Henri Benthack, the arrival monitor can be activated on any screen in the warehouse control center of the respective location. The employees there can easily identify which vehicle returns to the location at what time, even without prior opheo knowledge.
“Thanks to the arrival monitor, our drivers’ waiting times have been drastically reduced. There is more time to complete the subsequent tour, and the space situation at the ramp has significantly eased,” Kniebel summarizes the advantages of the solution.
Another effect of the arrival monitor is the space gained in the staging area, as now only the building materials immediately designated for the next loading are placed there. In the past, pickers often lacked clear guidelines on the priority with which orders planned for the respective day should be handled.
“Thanks to the advantages of the arrival monitor, this investment paid for itself within a few weeks,” notes Project Manager Kniebel.
Further Expansion Stages
Henri Benthack also expects a quick return on investment from the upcoming further expansion stages of opheo. Specifically, this involves introducing digital signatures and automated email notifications to inform customers about upcoming deliveries. The message is then sent automatically as soon as the truck falls below a certain distance from its destination. Timely notification before delivery primarily benefits construction site customers, allowing them to optimally schedule their personnel and clear space in time.
The planned introduction of digital signatures primarily benefits the invoicing process, which can then be started immediately after delivery.“In the future, our customers will no longer acknowledge receipt of goods on paper, but on the display of the vehicle tablet,” plans Kniebel, who also hasanother project in mind with opheo Solutions: the introduction of automatic tour planning with the opheo Optimizer.
Calculate Thousands of Tour Plans
The Optimizer, an intelligent planning and optimization algorithm, complements the opheo transport control center and covers a wide range of transport and vehicle types. Furthermore, the software can be adapted to individual customer-specific requirements using optimization parameters and the flexible opheo rule set. For example, the Optimizer takes into account required vehicle characteristics and capacities, driver qualifications, loading and opening times, as well as driving and rest times.
The opheo Optimizer is based on a self-learning algorithm developed by the mathematicians at opheo Solutions. The planning method, known as “Adaptive Evolutionary Search,” is capable of calculating thousands of tour plans within the shortest possible time and achieving gradual improvement through individual changes.
A Vibrant Partnership
Conclusion: Even after more than ten years, the partnership between Henri Benthack and Solvares Logistics is as vibrant as on day one. The continuously developed transport control system will continue to offer the building materials specialist many further opportunities for process optimization in the future.