Greenergy Flexigrid

Challenge

The challenges of Flexigrid’s complex supply chain logistics

Offering products and services that span the entire length of the fuel supply chain requires intensive and complex logistics. This is no easy feat, especially as demand fluctuates; but it is Flexigrid’s flexibility and resilience that differentiates them from competitors. According to Herbert, the company’s logistics activities have undergone a significant evolution over the years. Flexigrid was set up initially to handle Greenergy’s commercial haulage, but as the business expanded further across the supply chain and entered new markets, including haulage for third parties, a second system was added for retail logistics. However,
this meant the business was operating two programmes separately at the same system.

As both commercial and retail logistics activities continued to evolve, it became clear that having each part of the business operate independently was affecting the flexibility of their logistics and restricting the potential for growth. Moving to a single, semi-automated planning system allowed for improved organization and overall efficiency of the workload for both sides of the business with less manual intervention.

Solution

Flexigrid implemented AMCS Fuel Planner to improve delivery scheduling and demand planning, with the specific aim to make it faster, easier and more efficient.

‘Working with two separate systems was impacting flexibility, as we were unable to utilize excess vehicles and drivers from one side of the business to meet demand peaks on the other side of the business. Scheduling with AMCS Fuel Planner has improved this.’ says Bligh.

The vendor inventory management capabilities have been exceptional and improved delivery accuracy and efficiency, reducing needless fuel costs and impact from emissions. ‘This is a benefit that has immediately had an impact on business results,’ Bligh says. ‘Where before, a delivery could sometimes not be made to a customer for various reasons: changes in demand, insufficient space for offloading the volumes, access being unexpectedly blocked. Now, after the implementation of the AMCS Fuel Planner system we have the ability
to manage the customer’s inventory for them, and as a result have seen a real reduction in the number of trucks returning with full pots of undelivered fuel. The powerful algorithms of AMCS Fuel Planner have
taken that service capability to the next level.’ These algorithms within AMCS Fuel Planner also allow the system to not only build the most efficient and cost-effective route for both driver and vehicles, but also uniquely include the product price and availability, honoring contractual obligations within its route planning.
This ensures that Flexigrid deliver the customer’s orders with the most appropriate costs throughout, even in periods of low product availability

Results

AMCS Fuel Planner has further allowed Greenergy to differentiate themselves from the competition offering maximum flexibility to their customers, even during particularly volatile market conditions.

AMCS Fuel Planner has made these improvements across the business:

• Increased payload
• More effective utilization of driver hours
• Reduction in hours previously needed to produce daily schedules
• Reductions in the amount of undelivered product
• Increased ability to provide vendor inventory management