Transport Solution Implementation – the road to success
The Transport Consultants at ASCALi lead the way in implementing an innovative transport planning solution.
Challenge
The client in this project is one of the largest operators of home delivery fleet in the UK. As a business they regularly make in excess of 100,000 customer deliveries per week.
An organisation on that scale requires first class transport planning processes people and systems. A project had been delivered to identify how this organisation could radically update its transport planning process is to deliver a combination of optimised transport operations through best in class system solution implementation, as well as a radical new approach to customer service offering flexible delivery choices to customers at the same time as optimal load balancing across days weeks and geographies for the business.
This challenge went well beyond a standard transport planning system implementation. The process is involved in this case went to the heart of the organisation commercial relationship with its customer base. As a result this project was extremely high profile being regularly monitored at PLC board level. There was no scope to delay or slow down this project, the business case was very strong and it had to be delivered quickly, confidently and on budget.
Approach
Our consulting team took the helm of this project. We applied our skills in project management and supplemented them with specialist transport management and transport planning expertise. Our team were involved in all project management process is and decisions, as well as technical specification for the solutions and process development. Our team was also involved in defining revised operational organisational structures planning and transport execution across 17 regional hub locations.
Given the importance of the project, our consulting team worked alongside the group supply chain director and functional operational director day-to-day on this project.
Actions
We developed clear and robust project management methodology. We set up all the necessary working groups and project subgroups spanning a range of operational and executive stakeholders from across the business. We ensured that all the necessary RACI structures were captured and that all the right people were involved in the project at the right time.
The consulting team lead every project management review and were instrumental in delivering clarity and well communicated reporting across the timeline of the project.
Our technical SME consultants took part in all solution definition workshops and reviews adding significant value to the process in planning and identifying opportunities to add greater value from the process as well as picking up on gaps and omissions.
The consulting team in this project were fully integrated with the operational managers who would be involved in delivering the BAU solution after completion of the project; this was essential to build confidence in the BAU management team of the solution so that they would be able to work from day one in delivering optimal results.
The Results
This process was truly transformational for the client. I highly modified network supply chain design was recommended and implemented. This supply chain created significantly greater scope to meet changing consumer behaviours and created a very clear path to a future operating model that enabled the business to maintain its presence in its core market sectors as well as develop efficiency in servicing bulk and large scale retail customers with greater service resilience and predictability of cost.
In addition to the overall supply chain evaluation, it became apparent that there was a standout manufacturing plant that was significantly less efficient than other sites in the network, and was actually costing the business money to operate.
The consultancy team supported a process to exit this site and assisted with all aspects of preparation for external communication and internal knowledge development about the rationale for the decision and it‘s logic.
Overall this process provided significant clarity and direction for the leadership team for the client. The team were able to progress change effectively and had a very clear understanding of the required organisation structures and people needed to move forward and deliver the change.