Hermes has saved £300,000 in transport costs after implementing Paragon’s routeing and scheduling software to automate planning of deliveries from 14 of its 18 depots to final mile couriers throughout the UK.
This figure is set to rise once the software is rolled out in remaining four depots.
Hermes uses Paragon Multi Depot to plan set routes allowing for narrow delivery windows of no more than four hours.
The software is also used to help the company decide which type of vehicle to deploy to which delivery point as locations vary.
William Ellis, network development manager of Hermes, said: “Paragon has provided us with a range of tactical benefits already. It helps us with developing very accurate routes and has already saved us about £300,000 annualised, thereby paying for itself several times over. It is a good, easy to use, and fully functional solution for our operation. The software allows us to reduce our mileage – and this amounts to an average cost saving of £162 per year for every mile we don’t drive on a daily basis.”
Hermes re-runs its delivery routes every 6 months to ensure that each depot is running at peak efficiency. This is important as couriers can change, leave the job or move areas.
“With Paragon we don’t really need to worry about the churn rate of our couriers. To ensure we are managing resources efficiently we simply re-run routes from each depot twice a year and that way we are confident of maintaining optimum routings,” added Ellis.
