Thirsty for change

Last mile delivery is getting more challenging by the day. Increased competition, costs, and congestion all put pressure on resources and therefore margins. These pressures also contribute to customer service challenges. And while there is a growing selection of digital systems and tools to improve delivery processes, most of them are end systems that require significant transformation of current company processes.

Neverfail Spring Water (a division of Coca-Cola Euro-Pacific Partners) wanted to optimise their demand planning to improve the service schedule for underperforming deliveries. Many customers were being visited periodically on a set schedule regardless of their purchase volumes and many underperforming visits were overdue for reassessment. But when Adiona imported a large volume of data into the FlexOps platform, our automated diagnostics found a much larger opportunity hiding in plain sight.

By integrating Adiona FlexOps into their existing territory planning and route optimisation system, they quickly reduced delivery drive times by an average of 48%, delivery distances by an average of 36%, and the overall cost per unit delivered by a whopping 11%. Other benefits quickly followed. Many areas saw dramatic 40%+ improvements in customer satisfaction scores, reduced driver-contractor turnover due to increased job satisfaction, and they were even able to close entire depots by consolidating territories once thought to be impossible.

Importantly, these benefits began to flow within 4 weeks of their initial evaluation of the FlexOps platform and required $0 in capital expenditures. The FlexOps API was easy to integrate into their existing IT stack by writing a few scripts to import and export the necessary data. This allowed FlexOps to be completely customised but also remain standalone for fast implementation.

Post Covid-19, the value of FlexOps has increased even more for Neverfail. As business has shifted from central business districts and commercial customers to an increasing mix of residential customers, they use FlexOps and their historical sales data to model various scenarios and keep ahead of the rapid changes. This keeps them more prepared than the competition and in a more viable financial position.