Making routing and scheduling systems work for you, not against you, is one of the biggest challenges facing the transport industry today. With so many products on the market, the key is finding the one that works for you.

We speak to Dawid Janse van Rensburg, IT Director, Cargo Carriers about their products, as well as some of the projects they are working on for the future.

Integrative capabilities
Dawid starts off by telling us about their transport management systems. The CargoSolutions Division offers supply chain solutions to the industry, as well as supply chain and transportation management software systems. The transportation management systems consist of routing and scheduling, transport management, and vehicle maintenance management systems. The division also provides IT services to the Cargo Carriers group countrywide.

The South African market is still skeptical about the potential benefits of such systems

Day to day routing
David elaborates on some of this division’s products. “The routing and scheduling systems are developed in the UK, and consist of RouteLogiX and PlanLogiX. RouteLogiX is an entry level, map-based routing system, that can benefit any transport entity as it optimises distance to be covered to affect all deliveries, saving fuel and time in the process,” he explains.

“PlanLogiX is a rather sophisticated routing and scheduling system, and optimises the use of a given fleet, finding the best schedule in terms of specific delivery windows, driver hours, distance to be covered, traffic patterns on congested roads, etc. “Basically, the orders for the day or week is fed into the system, and the output is in the form of an optimised schedule and route for every vehicle for every day.

Transport Management
“Our transport management system, FleetLogiX is our own developed system that assists the fleet operator in the daily costing, comprehensive vehicle and driver productivity management, and service level conformance reporting, up to invoice preparation.”

South African Market
On the question of the local market’s readiness for these products, Dawid says that they find that the South African market is still skeptical about the potential benefits of such systems in their operations. “We find that they have not evolved like the European and the American markets. While the technology is not new to South Africa, increasing cost and service level pressure will force more companies to consider the benefits that can be derived from such systems.
“Implementing such a system requires a big investment in the skills levels of the employees, and will never be wasted, seeing that their approach to the job will in future always be considerably more systematic, with an emphasis on the optimisation of very scarce and expensive resources.

The power of these systems is harnessed when the planning and execution functions are integrated

This is the future
As far as the future is concerned, Dawid states that “the power of theses systems is harnessed when the planning and execution functions are integrated, and when they are interfaced with client order processing systems, vehicle tracking systems, and accounting systems. The combination of these systems can empower any transport operator to become a profitable and world-class operation.”

Dawid concludes that, for the future, they are looking at working on optimisation of the supply chain as a whole and not just the transport and distribution arenas.

He says, “Cargo Carriers is one of the oldest transport companies in South Africa. We recently celebrated our 51 st anniversary. The company is a JSE-listed specialised transportation, supply chain and logistics service provider.

“We offer transportation solutions in specific industry verticals, namely sugar, steel, powders, fuel and chemicals, backed up by a cross-border trading division. Cargo Carriers has been working actively on the process of migrating Cargo Carriers’ business from pure transport to a transport-based supply chain solutions provider.