The beverage manufacturer riha WeserGold controls its supply chain with the integrated transport management and telematics system opheo.
Thursday, April 13, 2017 – Long waiting times for trucks are a thing of the past at riha WeserGold in Rinteln. Without slot booking or other additional effort for forwarding agents, the medium-sized beverage manufacturer has managed to streamline its processes significantly. Behind this is the transport management and telematics system opheo, introduced in 2016, which has been integrated into the existing processes at riha WeserGold. The software from initions AG is connected to the Trend SWM merchandise management system via an interface, which leads to highly automated processes.
Significantly more productive
The delivery orders, mostly recorded in Trend SWM, are transferred to opheo and processed there into optimized tours for the 109 own trucks. In addition, there are the tours for around 80 vehicles from subcontractors and the external orders recorded directly in opheo. “We process 150 to 200 orders per day with four dispatchers at the Rinteln site alone,” says shipping manager Alfons Tebben. However, the division of labor will change soon, as one of the dispatchers will retire in 2017. “opheo and its easy-to-use DispoCockpit have led to a significant increase in productivity, so we plan to use the successor primarily for the acquisition of additional freight,” Tebben plans.
opheo leads to time savings in several areas. Even before the orders are transmitted to the trucks, the planned data is available in the ERP system. From here, they are used to control the fully automatic high-bay warehouse. The automatic picking and provision of the tour is started at the push of a button after the driver has reported to the dispatch. “By the time the truck has docked at the gate, the first pallets are usually ready in the correct order, so that the loading process can begin immediately,” Tebben describes.
Communication with the external forwarding agents also works very efficiently. They receive their transport orders the day before with specific information about when the tours are ready for loading. “In opheo, we can specify whether the transport order is sent to the forwarding agent by e-mail or fax,” Tebben explains. In any case, the automatic messages ensure the short processing times mentioned at the beginning.
Predicted arrival
Thanks to the integrated telematics solution opheo MOBILE, communication with the drivers is now also much more efficient. All order data is transmitted directly to the tablets installed in the vehicles at the touch of a button. This gives the drivers clear information that usually does not require further coordination. Instead, the orders are processed in the specified order and reported back to opheo with the current shipment status. The PTV Truck Navigator, which is integrated in opheo MOBILE, provides navigation.
“Our phones now ring much less often and we can immediately provide information to customer inquiries about the whereabouts of their order without consultation,” confirms Tebben. In this context, the shipping manager particularly emphasizes the forecast function of opheo, which calculates the exact time of arrival depending on the current traffic situation. “Only opheo could offer us this advantage,” recalls Tebben, who had analyzed several transport management systems in detail before making the investment decision.
Transparent and uniform
“In the summer of 2015, it was clear that initions AG could offer us the most suitable overall solution,” says Managing Director Thomas Mertens. Then the introduction of opheo took its course. “The cooperation with initions AG was very constructive and professional at all times, so that we kept to the time and cost frame,” Mertens continues. In January 2016, the solution went live in Rinteln. The Dodow and Waibstadt locations followed in February and May. In October, the Swiss location in Zurzach was launched.
Thanks to telematics and the Dispo-Cockpit, dispatchers can now also assign suitable external orders much more easily. “I now know at a glance which truck is near a potential return load,” Tebben emphasizes. If the suitable vehicle belongs to another location, an informal coordination with the colleagues via live chat is sufficient. Then the new order can be dispatched with a mouse click and is immediately visible to all dispatchers at all three locations. “This transparency and uniformity is another great benefit of opheo,” says Tebben. Now his employees and he could quickly understand the planning of their colleagues if necessary, which is very helpful in the event of short-term staff absences.
Automatically reminded
Another advantage of the telematics solution opheo MOBILE is the interface to the telemetry data system Fleetboard, with which all riha WeserGold trucks are equipped. While driving, Fleetboard collects the currently available driving and rest times and makes them clearly available in the DispoCockpit via opheo MOBILE. The same applies to the function for driver card control integrated in opheo. The expiry and control dates for all 140 drivers have been stored in the master data of opheo. As soon as a due date approaches, opheo automatically generates a reminder message, which then only has to be forwarded to the respective driver tablet.
The situation is similar with the upcoming workshop, inspection and maintenance work on the vehicles: The manually entered workshop appointments are automatically taken into account during dispatch. The affected trucks and trailers are then no longer available for dispatch for the duration of the planned workshop stay.
By the way: In addition to time, riha WeserGold now saves a lot of paper. Only the delivery notes are printed out here now, as the recipients still insist on this document. Everything else runs digitally. Above all, the picking slips, which used to serve as a planning basis, have been saved. Tebben estimates that his team now uses around 85 percent less paper than before the software was introduced. The shipping manager, on the other hand, wants to make exact statements on the cost effects of tour optimization and the associated CO2 savings in a few months. Then the opheo Reporting module will be introduced and the actual kilometers driven will be compared with the previous routes. It is only certain that there will also be significant savings here.
Background: riha WeserGold
riha WeserGold Getränke GmbH & Co. KG is a medium-sized manufacturer of non-alcoholic beverages, whose roots go back to 1934. The company, based in Rinteln, produces various mineral waters, juices, nectars, lemonades, spritzers and tea beverages at three German and four foreign locations. In addition to Germany, riha WeserGold produces in Spain, Poland, Switzerland and Costa Rica.
The three domestic riha WeserGold plants in Rinteln, Waibstadt and Dodow together have a production area of over 70,000 square meters, have more than 52,000 square meters of covered storage space and 89,000 square meters of open storage. The daily capacity in Rinteln, with 2.3 million cartons and 1.9 million bottles, is significantly higher than in Waibstadt (1.5 million cartons, 1.4 bottles) and Dodow (700,000 cartons, 1.5 million bottles). Riha WeserGold operates its own truck fleet with 109 semi-trailer trucks for the supply and disposal of the German production sites. In addition, around 80 vehicles from subcontractors are in use.
More information at www.riha-wesergold.de
