Europe Route Planner
Nations belonging to the European Union rely on one another to have strong economies and be close allies, providing a powerful, united front to the global community. One of the main reasons Britain left the EU was they felt the 350 million pounds per week was better spent internally, instead of out to the union. Whether or not their decision was wise, it is too soon to tell.
For the rest of the union, the cost of doing business in such a broad geographic market can be challenging. One example is the number of bakeries across Europe that bake their product fresh every single day. It is critical that they receive timely and accurate orders. With the need to provide the freshest product to bakeries around the European Union, businesses must find solutions to these three major challenges: time and accuracy without additional costs.
Time is the one commodity everyone feels they don’t have enough of because we are always on the go and with technology that gives us information instantly, it feels as though we are always under pressure. What can you do to create more time in order to get your products out to your customers as fast possible?
One idea is to streamline the process. Because deliveries for bakeries are ‘just in time’, they are often placed the day before they are needed. The best approach is to have a cut-off time for all orders, and organize your pallets of product according to route. Once you have them ready, all you have to do is load them when your drivers arrive, a process that can take 20-40 minutes, and then they are on the road to your customer.
Accuracy is another major challenge, especially with large and diverse orders. One best practice used by US Foods in the Unites States is to have a special tag and bar code on each item. Once the pallets are organized, have all the items scanned to ensure each order is complete and ready to go. You will be able to catch mistakes before the truck heads out the door.
Lastly, saving money will only add to your profitability but no business wants to sacrifice service for the bottom line. One way to reduce costs without adding any outgoing line items is to utilize an online route planner with optimization. By using this tool, you can reduce fuel costs, man hours and time out on the road. How can this be, you ask? Take a look at the examples below.
A route planned with Google maps which does not have an optimizer, went from Paris, France to Salzburg, Austria in a 5 stop route to all the bakeries the route covers. The time traveled is 22 hours and 32 minutes, covering a total of 2,187 miles. Considering the route covers 5 different countries, not too bad, right?
Europe route with Google Maps
This exact same list of addresses that were run through Google maps took only 1,956 km that and the route takes 20 hours and 49 minutes. That is a savings of almost 2 hours (man hours and fuel costs saved) and 231 km which results in saving wear and tear on vehicles.
Europe route with MyRouteOnline
+ Find out more about our Germany Route Planner
+ Find out more about our International Route Planner