Le Figuier, expert of food delivery  company, chose TourSolver solution of GEOCONCEPT to optimize the daily delivery routes of its dozens of vehicles.

The business

LE FIGUIER is a 20-employee business that makes and delivers meals, buffets, cocktails and breakfasts to companies. Its operations cover the Paris and Lille regions. It has approximately 2,500 customers and delivers to 40 to 80 of them each day with a fleet of a dozen vehicles made up of light refrigerated vehicles, and a few two-wheeler. This extremely competitive market, which includes both agri-food giants and small businesses, requires the tightest management possible in order to grow and survive.

The need

Mr. Lacoste purchased this business in the early 2000s and was able to quickly expand due to the new and growing demand from companies for meal delivery at the time, particularly for internal meetings, yet few businesses that provided this service.

He first focused on creating an offer that was original, yet limited, for the sake of efficiency. The next step was to have internal system software developed that would be the same: customised to his needs and easy to use and upgrade.

Because of his previous experience in transport and logistics, he then took charge of organizing routes himself. As business increased over time, this task proved to be increasingly cumbersome and routes became less optimal, creating the need for a solution to improve route scheduling.

The choice and the implementation

To match his management style, Mr. Lacoste wanted a product that was easy to use and covered his needs, no more and no less. TourSolver met his requirements: quick implementation, constraints corresponding to his business, and a simple interface with his operating software.

After making a few adjustments and adding some data to the information system, the solution was up and running in just one week.

Orders are received until late in the evening by fax, email, Internet or telephone. They are re-entered with the desired delivery schedules and volume criteria, expressed in number of boxes. Beginning at 6:00 am the next morning, TourSolver plans routes in just a few minutes, taking into account the companies’ locations and schedules, which then automatically separates morning deliveries from noon deliveries, as well as vehicle capacity also expressed in boxes.

The calculated routes are used to schedule deliveries, prepare palettes and assign them to vehicles. They are also sent to the drivers’ Tomtoms.

Toursolver: an important asset to company organization

The solution is used daily.

“TourSolver is obviously faster at calculating routes and more reliable in taking into account customer constraints” states Mr. Lacoste.

Optimizing routes also has two advantages: It increases the number of deliveries per route and provides customers with better service by meeting delivery times.

From a strategic point of view, TourSolver has proven to be paramount in organizing a business. Planning is a key point in productivity; TourSolver has automated this process and made it faster and more reliable.

“This has taken a burden off me and helped our overall efficiency, and undoubtedly somewhere along the line contributed to the long-term survival of the company” states Mr. Lacoste.