Recently a customer called me with an interesting case about logistics planning. For many years the transport coordinator was waiting for all orders to be processed, then the production to confirm date of loading and just then he was starting to combine the loads and search for trucks. In many cases this process lead to delays in deliveries and higher expenses due to emergency situations.

The arrangement of goods in the trucks is not a constant value because orders are collected during the whole working day and once combined the parcels should be ungrouped and the route might be changed.

Fortunately, there are models (in excel and in small software), which may facilitate the work of transport coordinators by:

1. The transportation of orders is planned when the orders are registered in the system. The criteria is:
   1. Materials on stock
   2. Production lead time
   3. Expected routes
   4. Load size
2. The trucks are planned and ordered one day after the orders are registered in the system
3. All these operations are automatic and the transport coordinator needs only to control the execution.

Building such models is quite a fast process and its implementation takes less than one month. Apart from that, these models are not heavy as ERP systems and thus the prices are acceptable too, e.g. the investment is returned within 1-2 months.

The benefits from logistics planning are:

1. Avoiding manual work, mistakes, misleads
2. Saving costs caused by chaotic ordering of trucks and waste of time
3. Deliveries planning

In other words, it is worth to invest in a planning model.