Tempe, AZ February 6, 2003 Third-party logistics (3PL) services provider Schneider Logistics is using optimization technology from software components specialist ILOG to reduce its shipping costs and deliver savings up to 25 percent to its customers, according to an announcement from ILOG.
Schneider has incorporated ILOG's optimization technology into its own SUMIT suite and is using ILOG's Dispatcher to improve vehicle routes and schedules, thus reducing actual transport times.
Schneider, working with 8,500 transport companies worldwide, manages 70,000 shipments a week, representing about $6 billion in transport charges annually. Its SUMIT suite produces freight routing schedules based on a complex set of constraints, including shipment weight, maximum allowable number and duration of stops, and federal and state vehicle transportation regulations. Faced with this complexity, Schneider Logistics must determine the most time- and cost-efficient routes possible.
By incorporating ILOG's optimization technology, Schneider has enabled SUMIT users to reduce the number of trucks on which they rely and deliver more shipments on time. ILOG's Dispatcher calculates pickup and delivery deadlines, depot operating hours and drivers' preferences for routes and days off. Dispatcher then delivers the optimal solution that combines multiple shipments into single delivery routes characterized by the lowest costs and fewest trucks possible while still meeting each customer's service and delivery agreements.
In this way, ILOG said, Schneider is saving its customers, which include General Motors, Thomson and Case New Holland, as much as thousands of dollars per day on their shipping costs, or up to 25 percent.
"Our customers all face significantly different logistics challenges, and our goal has always been to provide the optimal solution that best meets each customer's unique needs," said Ted Gifford, director of research for Schneider. "By incorporating ILOG Dispatcher into our existing applications, we provide our customers with a solution that is robust enough to handle complex problems that vary greatly in scale."
