posted by Jeff Novak: Thursday, September 04, 2008
  The BusinessWeek Small Business Section is often a great place to get tools to help run your small business more effectively.  Recently, the topic of one article was how to reduce your gas expenses.  The article gives advice if you are only using one or two trucks or if you have an entire fleet.
The article recommends AAA.com at the site has a gas finder that after you plug in the zip code it pulls up a map of local gas stations and prices. Â I prefer to use gasbuddy.com, as it is more community based (people are encouraged to join and post gas prices) which keeps the site current and up to date. Â They also have a mobile site as well as a partnership with Where, which adds a widget to your GPS device so you can get gas prices while on the road.
For larger fleets, Businessweek recommends Rand McNally's Intelliroute which costs about $1500 and a $300/mo fee but it is one of the most complete route finding services.  Also mentioned in the article is Roadnet Anywhere from UPS.   There are several other tools and services, which ones do you use?
I ran across this blog as it mentions software I'm intimately familiar with as I work at UPS-LT! In working with many companies, large and small, on their software needs, here is a set of core recommendations I use in helping companies pick the right solutions for their needs.
How do you choose which type of system is best for you? There are several things to consider:
1. What size is your fleet? ASP based systems are targeted towards those with smaller fleets and less complex routing problems. Perpetual license systems handle many different, more complex business constraints such as reloads, break management, hours of service and many more.
2. What problem are you trying to solve? Strictly reduce miles and overtime? Or something more complex such as reloads and increased capacity? If your just looking to improve miles and overtime, look to an ASP based solution. It will calculate the shortest path and most likely adhere to time windows. If you are trying to solve a much more complex problem look to a perpetual license-based system. Not only will it solve the miles and overtime problem but it will allow you to have more flexibility with the routing answer.
3. Routing is only half of the problem. It is a good start but also be thinking about the fact that you still need to monitor what drivers are doing after you give them a plan. Good routing and scheduling providers will also have an integrated GPS component that will monitor routes as they are run in real-time notifying you of exceptions. These can be speeding, off route by X miles, unplanned stops and excessive service time to name a few.
4. Check the Routing and Scheduling provider out. Are they financially secure? Have they been in the industry for more than 5 years? Do they have customers in the same industry as yours?
5. References. Read case studies and ask to talk to and visit with customers that are currently using the product. The users will always know the good and the bad. While you’re there ask about the implementation process – how long did it take and what were the challenges.
Cyndi Brandt
Director of Marketing
UPS Logistics Technologies – provider of Roadnet® and Roadnet Anywhere® vehicle routing applications.
www.upslogisticstech.com
September 9, 2008 9:46 AM
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