L.R. Services has automated its distribution planning of 4000 weekly deliveries to McDonald's restaurants throughout France with map-based transport optimisation software from Paragon Software Systems. The software is delivering major efficiencies by reducing planning time and saving road miles for an extremely complex operation.
L.R. Services has to operate under challenging constraints unique to
McDonald's France. These are variable order volumes, changeable time windows for different types of delivery - fresh foods or other products - and different
delivery frequencies, making it essential to optimise routing and
scheduling. By using a combination of Paragon Multi Period Planner and Paragon
Multi Depot software, L.R. Services is able to streamline and simplify its
planning processes.
"We must have visibility of the total order volumes for each week, plus
the delivery frequency for each restaurant. We also need to be able to
integrate different types of deliveries within available time windows; and, to do this manually would be extremely difficult. Paragon automates this
planning for us by allocating the volumes to the right days and optimising the
trips. This increases efficiency and reduces road miles," says Bruno Thery,
Distribution Project Manager, L.R. Services.
L.R. Services is part of the Keystone Foods group of companies. It has
been the logistics provider to McDonald's France since 1989 and is responsible
for the delivery of all stock - food, packaging, cleaning materials and
ancillaries - to more than 1000 restaurants from seven regional distribution
centres (DC). The company operates around 1500 routes per week from the
DCs, served by a fleet of 160 articulated and rigid-bodied trucks.
Although other companies within the Keystone Food group also use Paragon
products, Bruno Thery is clear about his software selection.
"We can't be influenced by other Keystone operations and their choice of
technology, because we operate under very different constraints to our
colleagues in the UK and US. After eliminating several other software products, we put Paragon through a rigorous 130-point check and it demonstrated that it could provide the accuracy and efficiency improvements we need to fulfil our services," he says.