Heatleys Safety & Industrial Streamlines Operations by 80% with eLogii

“After evaluating 20+ options, and trailing 5+, we chose eLogii for our local delivery management solution for ~200 deliveries per day, for its flexibility and ability to integrate into our workflow. Drivers were able to be quickly onboarded thanks to a simple but very powerful driver app.” - Philip Podgorski - Chief Development Officer @ Heatleys

Background

Heatleys Safety & Industrial is an Industrial MRO, Safety & Workplace Supplies distributor that has established a strong presence in the industry by leveraging their access to millions of products, over 200 employees, and a nationwide distribution network. 

Heatleys is a part of ASX listed organization Stealth Global Holdings (ASX:SGI), a leading Australian Public Listed multinational distribution group. 

Heatleys serves customers of all sizes across various industries, utilizing its wide range of in-stock products, supply chain infrastructure, customer and supplier relationships, eCommerce platforms, and physical store network.

Recently, Heatleys decided to switch to eLogii, as they required a delivery management and route optimization solution that they felt would help drive efficiency across hundreds of deliveries a day and pickups from suppliers.

The problem

Although Heatleys had an existing delivery management solution in place, the system was not flexible or powerful enough to solve the bulk of their business problems. 

These problems fell predominantly into the following areas: 

• Hours spent manually planning delivery operations
• Excel-based run-sheets were prone to human error
• Routes often being inefficient, especially as the whole fleet could not be considered
• Separating B2B and B2C orders was a challenge in terms of different delivery services offered by their fleet of drivers and vehicles

Heatleys were looking for a solution that would not only help them automate a lot of the then-manual processes but also lead to a higher level of efficiency across the board as well as a higher level of customer service. 

Prior to adopting eLogii, Heatleys was facing a significant challenge in terms of managing their deliveries efficiently. The company was relying on manual optimization techniques that were both time-consuming and labor-intensive as well as prone to error. 

The company evaluated 20+ options and tried 5 of these, including eLogii. 

Many of the other solutions tried lacked practical application to Heatleys operations due to some of the following challenges: 

• Inability to handle the volume of 200 deliveries a day
• Lack of flexibility when it came to route optimization
• In ability to manage B2B and B2C operations from a single pane of glass
• No task grouping
• Only supporting delivery optimization, not pickup as well

The solution

After evaluating 20+ options in the market and dismissing the majority of them due to lacking the flexibility and feature-set Heatleys were looking for, Heatleys chose eLogii. 

Some of the key areas of the solution that provided the most benefit to Heatleys: 

• Automated route optimization: One click (or API call) route optimization took into account all of Heatleys required constraints (and more)
  
  
  
  
• Digital Proof of Delivery: Photos, signatures or any other required proof of delivery (including barcode scans etc.) are enabled out of the box with eLogii
  
  
• Custom Data: Custom fields provide the capability to incorporate an organization’s own specific fields into various entities within eLogii (allowing them to be taken into account in planning and filtered by)
  
  
  
  
• Route Reordering: Despite eLogii providing the most optimal route automatically for all of Heatley’s drivers, they wanted the ability to adjust the routes live (from both the operations team and driver sides if needed)
  
  
  
  
• Multiple Dimensions: The ability to add an unlimited number of dimensions which allowed Heatleys to optimize their vehicle loads taking into account their broad product mix
  
  
  
  
• Traffic Routing: Both historical and real-time traffic information allowed Heatleys to have one click planning while taking into account realistic ETAs (that would update live when the routes are executed) 
• Pickups: Heatleys wanted to blend pickups into their routes, something that is a challenge with many route optimization software solutions out there. With eLogii these can seamlessly be included into routes and capacity is always looked at on a ‘rolling basis’ allowing pickups and dropoffs to happen together within a single optimized route
  
  

As a result of using eLogii, Heatleys have been able to streamline their operations, save manual work and set themselves up for significant growth ahead - all while driving customer satisfaction to new heights.

The results

“eLogii is an advanced and highly flexible piece of software that offers comprehensive route optimization, ideal for local delivery companies. Its cloud-based platform offers an easy-to-use driver app and an intuitive user interface for fleet managers”.  - Philip Podgorski - Chief Development Officer @ Heatleys

The switch to eLogii has brought a number of significant benefits to the company, including: 

An increase in revenue as a result of later cut-offs and being able to service more orders

• An 80% reduction in the time spent on planning and scheduling
• A reduction in the number of manual processes and spreadsheets 
• A reduction in paperwork required by drivers
• A significant improvement in already-strong customer satisfaction (tracking and live ETAs helped a lot)
• A significant reduction in customer calls to check where orders were

Heatleys integrated eLogii via API to their ERP system and their CIO said: 

“eLogii’s API for integrations is comprehensive and well documented”

The company has seen not only significant improvements in terms of time-saving but also on-time-in-full stats have jumped remarkably.

The fleet manager, who previously spent a majority of his day manually organizing routes and answering questions around driver locations and delivery statuses is now able to focus on other tasks that elevate customer experience.