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Industry Solution Customer Success Story

Descartes for Ocean

Sanimax

Keeping Recycling Efforts on Schedule with Descartes

Carriers

As a company with a strong commitment to environmental stewardship in the foodservice and agricultural communities, Sanimax collects more than a million tons of animal and food by-products, vegetable oils, and hides and skins, for recycling. Every year the company transforms these waste materials into high quality products for industries throughout North America and around the world. Its customers include feed companies, chemical manufacturers, tanneries, soap producers and pet food manufacturers. Sanimax also produces clean-burning biofuels for commercial trucking fleets and other energy uses.

The Sanimax Restaurant Services division has been in operation since 1927. It offers a sanitary system for the collection and recycling of cooking oil and grease generated by more than 7,000 foodservice customers in Ontario, including Burger King and McDonalds, among others. This division’s fleet of 27 vans and trailers performs a range of pickup and delivery services round the clock at a rate of 25 to 30 stops a day.

Keeping Up to Speed on Pickups & Deliveries

According to Transportation Supervisor Stephan Campagna, the job of routing pickups from restaurants and deliveries to various facilities was not being handled as efficiently as they would have liked. “Unlike some of our other operations that run on fixed delivery schedules, our timelines can easily change on a weekly or monthly basis. As a result, we were spending a lot of unnecessary hours setting up routes and had no visibility into driver activities on the road.”

Campagna adds that although Sanimax did have an automated routing program, “It wasn’t managed properly and we found that delivery costs were escalating over time. A lot of mileage was wasted because drivers were often going to the same city twice in the same week or we had two trucks going to the same place at the same time.”

With Descartes, we’re confident we can do much more while using less fuel, driving fewer miles and reducing any negative impact on the environment.

Stephan Campagna, Transportation Supervisor, Sanimax

Sanimax required a solution that would optimize its route planning process; provide it with much needed visibility; and at the same time, enable the company to lessen its own environmental footprint. Sanimax turned to Descartes Routing and Planning Solution - a solution that had been used successfully by its U.S. counterparts for several years. “We wanted a product we could use throughout our entire operations over the long term,” explains Campagna. “In comparing the Descartes solution to other offerings, including the one we were currently using, we believed it would deliver the efficiency we were seeking.”

Streamlining Routing with Descartes

Sanimax began working with Descartes’ Routing and Planning Solution to enable users to build optimal plans based on available routes, fleet resources and field personnel. As part of the Descartes Routing, Mobile and Telematics suite, Descartes’ Routing and Planning Solution is an easy-to-use application that helps improve operational efficiency by leveraging market-proven algorithms and geographic network modeling capabilities to enhance the order fulfillment process while reducing costs through shorter routes, reduced fuel consumption and enhanced fleet utilization. It also determines the best truck and route resources to use, as well as, recommends order sequences to support dynamic routing needs. Users can select optimization criteria including lowest cost or shortest routes, or shortest distance between stops.

results, is in the time our hourly-paid drivers are spending on the road. Efficiency has greatly improved. Our drivers aren’t making as many unnecessary calls, are able to find customers more easily, and are working on maximizing truck volumes. They’ve already seen a major difference in the hours when they come back at the end of their shift.”

Getting an Upper Hand on Delivery Cycles

Campagna reports that although the implementation is relatively new, the company has already started to see efficiency improvements. “The first area we are beginning to see

He estimates that some drivers are saving at least eight hours a week of driving time, if not more. “I know of one driver whose drive time has been reduced from 70 to 60 hours.”

Customer service has also improved. “We’ve seen a big difference in the numbers of customers calling us, because we are serving them more efficiently and frequently which means lower overall service costs,” explains Campagna.

This is only the beginning of Sanimax’s work with Descartes. The company is currently in the process of deploying handheld computers to drivers on the road so information can be sent back to a central office for more streamlined billing. Drivers will enter how much weight they have in their truck. That information will then be downloaded to the company’s financing system for billing. In addition, route information provided through the handhelds will allow managers to compare planned versus actual delivery performance.

Benefits Summary

Challenge:

Sanimax required a more efficient way to manage dynamic routing for its fleet of 27 trucks. While the company had been using automated routing capabilities, a lot of unnecessary hours were spent setting up routes. The system also did not provide insight into delivery cycles.