Reduce Your Transport Costs With These Tips

Regardless of whether your plans are for daily or a set of fixed routes, the two primary goals in transport planning are efficiency and cost saving. Transport operators too have to work out a route optimisation system that helps them to remain ahead of competitors. They can work with you to ensure you get the best and most cost-effective transport solutions. Here are a few tips that can help reduce your transport costs:

#1 Switch To Automated Planning

Automated planning proves advantageous when compared to manual routing and scheduling because it:

• Puts in place a route optimisation system that indicates accurate and reliable routes to suit your business-specific criteria
• Frees you from the hassles of manual rerouting
• Makes it possible to earn return on your investment in a shorter time providing your business the impetus to expand
• Opens up more opportunities for greater efficiency and savings

#2 Repeat Fixed Route Optimisation

The success of an automated route optimisation system is based on a continuous review of changing transport needs and cost control measures. This requires you to:

• Take into account changes in your customer list, on a weekly basis
• Ensure the optimality of fixed routes based on seasonal changes
• Factor in delivery time changes in view of customer requirements

#3 Importance Of Strategic Assessment

Strategic assessment involves review of measures for business growth, cost savings, and increase in profits on a longer-term basis. A few measures you can focus on include:

• Scenario planning to simulate resource-cost comparisons using a routing and scheduling software
• A review of costs by varying parameters such as size of vehicles in use, driver’s working hours, and even delivery related issues like frequencies and locations

#4 Variation In The Route Optimisation Factor

Business plans undergo changes as the factors they depend upon change. Some factors that affect transport include the addition of new customers and their requirements, delivery window changes and traffic congestion problems. You need to factor these in, while working out route optimisation. This aspect also needs to be coordinated with fleet and fuel costs.

#5 Review Fuel Usage

Handling heavy loads is fuel intensive. This is why it becomes important to design a fuel cost-reduction strategy, which can help reduce your overall transport costs. You can reduce fuel consumption by changing the drop sequences of heavily loaded vehicles. Incidentally, this also helps reduce emissions.

#6 Vehicle Tracking In Real Time

One of the important aspects of a transport plan is vehicle tracking. You need to link your transport plan and the preferred telematics equipment. The equipment displays the off route spikes in distance that you can alter as required. It indicates slack areas in planning that hamper productivity. You can then take measures to tighten the plan to enhance efficiency.

#7 Time Window Management

There is a close connect between transport costs and transport routes. However, most people tend to overlook routes that can help them reduce costs. This can sometimes be due to time window restrictions at the delivery points. Using efficient route optimisation software can help you manage the time window more effectively which in turn can reduce costs.

#8 Review Progress Via Benchmarking

Business planning involves setting targets and reviewing progress periodically. You can plot trends and benchmark the planning process when planners generate daily Key Performance Indicators (KPI). You can then introduce the necessary changes to achieve your business targets. Increase in productivity and profitability are the ultimate goals of a business. A combination of the strategies outlined above will help to achieve it. For effective and sustainable cost reductions & efficiencies that will increase your bottom line, contact the experts at Benchmark Cost Solutions at this number – 02 9525 0777. If you prefer, write to us at this email address, and we will revert quickly. Thanks for reading, Benchmark Cost Solutions Team 02 9525 0777