Courier service provider seeks industry solution

We are a courier service provider with the following main activities: picking up letters and parcels from business customers, picking up letters from mailboxes, and picking up laboratory samples. In terms of deliveries, we deliver pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, vehicle parts, printed materials, post office box contents, and internal mail, among other things. We have approximately 70 employees, a fleet of 40 vehicles, and nine courier services/subcontractors working for/with us.

An overview of our current range of logistics services:

• Courier and internal mail services
• P.O. box service
• Mailbox emptying
• Letter and parcel collection from business customers with subsequent dispatch
• Delivery of automotive spare parts to auto repair shops
• Delivery of pharmaceutical products to pharmacies (day/night)
• Delivery of medical products and eyeglasses
• Collection of human medical laboratory samples from doctors during the day
• Collection of veterinary laboratory samples from veterinarians at night
• Delivery of daily newspapers
• Special deliveries of all kinds throughout Germany

Pick-ups and deliveries are generally carried out on daily, fixed routes. These are therefore regular, pre-planned standard routes. In addition, we receive orders from Avis customers (i.e., customers who require irregular and short-term deliveries/pickups) on the day of the tour, so that these can also be taken care of in between. The customer gives us different – usually short – time slots for delivery or pickup.

A standard tour has between 10 and 50 stops. Every day, we drive around 80-100 tours with a total of around 1,700 stops and a mileage of 15,000 kilometers. Our network of routes covers the entire Rhine-Main area, extending into the Palatinate, Lower Franconia, Upper Franconia, and Baden-Württemberg.

What makes us special is that almost all of our tours are combined tours. This means that a single tour includes stops at customers from a wide variety of clients, and a wide variety of products with a wide variety of requirements are loaded and unloaded. For example, a single tour may include picking up letters and laboratory samples as well as delivering vehicle parts.

In addition to our regular routes, we also accept special orders for all kinds of transport services. Unlike our regular routes, these special trips are usually transports from A to B or have a small number of stops. Most of these trips are within our local area, but some are also throughout Germany.

We are now interested in software for our company. The reason for this is that we have handled many tasks manually up to now. However, we have now reached a certain order volume and need software tailored to our needs for the efficient handling of our business, also as a basis for further growth.

Additional requirements for the software:

The software should include the following modules:

1. Customer management (enter and manage all customer data, etc.)

2. Route planning

• It is important to have detailed route planning that fits our specific requirements (i.e., combined routes, planning according to specified delivery and pickup time windows, many stops per route, etc.).
• With regard to time slots, it should be noted that the tour planning module takes these into account and can calculate optimal tour plans. In addition, the length of time spent at each customer location (which varies depending on the customer/product/location, etc.) must also be mapped and added to the time slot.
• Furthermore, legal regulations regarding total working hours, driving times (difference between small and large vehicles) and breaks must be observed and mapped.

3. Dispatching

• Dispatching of orders, employees/drivers, vehicles and subcontractors.
• Our drivers are full-time, part-time, and 450-euro employees. The dispatching module must therefore be able to take into account the respective maximum working hours per week/month.
• Vacation planning and sick leave replacement.

4. Billing

• Billing customers (based on stop price, km price, and fixed price).
• Billing employees (full-time, part-time, and 450-euro workers).
• Billing subcontractors (based on stop price, km price, and fixed price).

Our route network covers several states. Since individual routes also pass through several states, it can happen on certain holidays that stops in the state with the holiday are canceled, while the remaining stops must still be made. This changes the routes. The software must be able to flexibly map this in terms of efficient route planning, scheduling, and billing.

We would like GPS including tracking for all vehicles.

The software would initially be required for around 12 workstations.