Oracle Real-Time Scheduler for Fuel Delivery Organizations. Building Profitability Through Fleet Optimization

Transcription

1 Oracle Real-Time Scheduler for Fuel Delivery Organizations Building Profitability Through Fleet Optimization

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3 Reliability, efficiency and safety need to be your calling cards Fuel delivery and service residential, retail, bulk, mobile, specialty or any combination presents a unique set of challenges. Service locations can be dispersed and remote, vehicle and personnel availability change daily, weather and operating environments can be harsh, and unexpected demand stresses resources. However, customers don t worry about your operating problems. They simply want fuel when and where they need it at the agreed upon price. To them, run-outs, scheduling errors or unexpected delivery issues just mean you won t have their business for long. The solution to keeping customers satisfied and business growing is simple: Oracle Real-Time Scheduler. Oracle Real-Time Scheduler ensures you meet customer delivery expectations the right way every time, all while streamlining cost and injecting efficiency. Oracle s powerful workforce management solution delivers automation and visibility across the service chain. With it you can prioritize delivery ticketing, balance truck loads, optimize resources, ensure safety adherence, instantly adjust to the unexpected, analyze performance to continually improve, and much more. The end result? An optimized operation that exceeds customer expectations and grows profitability with each and every delivery. 3

4 Cement customer loyalty and lower costs with Oracle Real-Time Scheduler Oracle Real-Time Scheduler is a customer-centric appointment booking solution for fuel delivery organizations that encompasses best-of-breed planning, scheduling, routing and mobile functionality. It enables companies to optimize the use of their mobile resources and delivery fleets by providing: Flexible delivery slots: Define and automatically select appointment windows using a combination of best-outcome criteria, including distance and demand differential and customer-specific detail, such as lifetime value, degree days or loyalty program status. Customer-centric orientation: Support mobile device access to accounts, product preferences, service and communication history, and policies to drive more effective in-person interactions, leaving a lasting, positive impression. Accelerated resolution: Capture key information at the delivery point, such as customer signatures, photographic information, and service dynamics to help both avoid and more quickly solve exceptions. Exceeding expectations ensures repeat business. Seamless communications with drivers: Communicate bidirectionally in real time throughout the workday, ensuring streamlined and accurate information flow through the point of fulfillment for each and every delivery. Better access to information: Provide delivery and service personnel with views of appropriate customer account details and promotions to facilitate more informed service and opportunity to upsell. Improved safety assurance: Push process, closeout procedures and alerts to drivers to ensure Hazmat and other safety compliance is adhered to throughout the service delivery lifecycle. Consistently reliable performance: Incorporate performance management analytics to gain detailed insight into field performance and to support workflow process tools that eliminate subjectivity and anomalies, ensuring uniform behavior across in-house employees and any third party, outsourced drivers. By helping fuel delivery organizations optimize resource planning and implement realtime, automated processes, Oracle Real-Time Scheduler opens the door to exceeding customer expectations and driving profitability. 4

5 Deliver and service what you promised when you promised it using a proven, scalable platform It s one thing to want to optimize the delivery and service process; it s another entirely to automate it so you know customers are happy, revenue is assured, and costs are contained. Providing that certainty is where we come in. Oracle Real-Time Scheduler encompasses all the aspects of booking, optimizing, and executing appointments for the delivery of fuel as well as the service of the customer tanks, with configurable processes and data flows, enterprise dashboards, and mobile communications that give retailers a critical advantage: Configurable Operational Rules & Priorities Employ analytics to manage the parameters needed to maximize the availability and type of appointment slots and ensure efficient routing of delivery vehicles throughout the network facilitating worldclass service at a manageable cost. The scheduler considers all the permutations of delivery parameters to identify optimal appointment slots in seconds not minutes. Deliveries get prioritized correctly with customers in mind, so your most critical customers automatically get the responsiveness they deserve. Constraints such as vehicle capacities and road networks are applied automatically, better matching truck load with demand and driving down fleet cost, re-visits and travel while getting more jobs done. Information throughout the service process can be captured, analyzed and presented via dashboards, where it can be used to drive best practice process, improving ontime arrivals, reducing overtime and minimizing cost of service. 360 Visibility of Planned Activities and Exceptions Arm schedulers with realtime visibility of the operation, showing planned runs as a Gantt chart, in tabular form or on a map, including details on vehicles, drivers, deliveries and collections, depots and routes expediting decision making and smoothing workflow. Real-time visibility of crucial information, such as truck availability and capacity, lets you easily handle unplanned customer requests, proving value when it counts most. True street-level routing is employed during appointment setting to ensure planned runs are efficient, expensive idle time is reduced and delivery time is achievable. Superior in-day event management provides alerts highlighting deliveries in jeopardy, overtime approval management and other tools to take the drama out of the unexpected, such as driving delays, staffing shortages, bad weather, and vehicle breakdowns. 5

6 Mobile Communications Ensure drivers/technician are fully informed about each stop on their run by including customer history, special requests or warnings. Also, capture or show key account information at the point of delivery using laptops, tablets and handhelds demonstrating high levels of professionalism. Route-optimized runs are made available to each driver, helping ensure on-time delivery and efficient operations. Delivery completion details can be captured directly on a mobile device, eliminating error-prone paperwork and freeing time for employees to focus on more valuable tasks. Disconnect alerts, panic buttons, procedure checklists, intercommunication and real-time location awareness make sure your most valuable assets employees return safely every day. Optimized Delivery Service Chain Oracle Real-Time Scheduler Configurable Process 360 Visibility Mobile Communications Analytics AUTOMATION Efficient Operations Fewer delivery vehicles Fewer miles driven More deliveries per run Optimal staffing levels Lower fuel costs Reduced overtime Customer-Centric Orientation Later cut-off times Meeting delivery promises Smooth handling of missed deliveries More slot availability Lower delivery charges Green options DELIVERY Reliability Accuracy Responsiveness Safety Oracle Real-Time Scheduler Drives Efficiency and Customer-centricity Through the Service Chain 6

7 See how one client delighted its customers and reduced costs Eastern Propane Customer Profile One of the largest privately-owned propane marketers in the United States, Eastern Propane is a full-service fuel delivery company serving New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont. The company provides 24/7 direct delivery and depot propane and heating oil service to more than 85,000 commercial, industrial and residential customers. Challenges For more than 70 years, Eastern Propane has provided exceptional levels of customer service. In that time, a growing customer base and additional competition increasingly put pressure on the company to minimize disruptions and provide cost-effective customer service excellence. To continue to lead in the market, Eastern Propane needed to increase its workforce productivity, achieving necessary reductions in cost and time to service. The challenges to doing so were substantial, including improving critical operations and customer service process that was supported by obsolete and fragmented systems. We saw benefit the day after we turned it [ORS] on. We could now clearly see that we had too many trucks on the road with only one or two stops. We are reducing truck miles on the road and gallons per trip are increasing. The visibility ORS provides means we can reassign drivers to other tasks for an entire week. Chuck Clement, VP Logistics Eastern Propane Eastern Propane outlined a 5-year plan for improving service and reducing cost via technology. Oracle Real-Time Scheduler was central to its vision for improvement. The Results With Oracle Real-Time Scheduler, the company improved enterprise visibility to its key revenue driving component the fuel delivery service lifecycle. Using the visibility provided by the solution, Eastern Propane also relied upon Oracle Real-Time Scheduler to better schedule and execute deliveries, achieving efficiency, cost savings and customer service improvements that impacted profitability, including: Improved accuracy of tank level calculations Additional fuel delivered per trip More deliveries per trip Increased price-based revenue 7

8 Provide world-class customer service to a new generation of consumer In the fuel delivery service, mistakes are readily apparent to customers and magnified in impact as they ripple down the delivery schedule. Make one and it s very likely the last time you ll see that customer,and perhaps others, who will simply turn to one of the many other choices available in the market. Oracle Real-Time Scheduler is built on the principle that each individual customer now has his or her own definition of service excellence. Guessing what those definitions are is futile, but being able to deliver to them is not. Oracle Real Time Scheduler provides visibility, flexibility, and optimization throughout the service chain, so you can meet each individual customer s need- every time. In a modern, results-oriented world, Oracle Real-Time Scheduler delivers exceptional benefits, ensuring your customers become your best brand advocates. Reduce deployment time, cost, and risk via the cloud Oracle s solution is available through the cloud, significantly speeding your ability to deploy and realize mobile workforce benefits. Via Oracle Mobile Workforce Cloud Service, businesses can get Oracle Real-Time Scheduler up and running quickly with the tools and features they need most and transfer technology management activities to the Oracle Cloud. This cloud solution reduces technology costs and risks and empowers businesses to focus more time on their core operations. With the addition of this implementation, customers can choose an option in the cloud, on premise or a hybrid model that best suits their business strategy, cost, technology and timeline needs. 8

9 CONTACT US For more information about Oracle Real-Time Scheduler, visit oracle.com or call ORACLE1 to speak to an Oracle representative. OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA Visit oracle.com/corporate/contact/global.html to find the phone number for your local Oracle office. 9

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