KPI benchmark to minimize unproductive travel times in the service department

The Client

Lavazza Professional is a well-known manufacturer and operator of vending machines. Although cold beverage and snack vending machines are also part of its portfolio, the company is primarily known for its strong market position in hot beverage vending machines – especially coffee. The company has customers in a wide range of sectors, with medium-sized companies from the manufacturing and logistics industries making up the majority. Service is particularly important. Not only because the companies expect the machines to be readily available to all employees but also because Lavazza Professional generates its revenue from the consumables – if one of the machines is defective, no revenue is generated.

Mathematical
Benchmark

Mathematically calculated optimum as a reference value for productivity measurement.

Strategic decision making with complex what-if
scenarios.

What if?

Deep
insight

Overview of structures, dependencies and mechanisms of action in the company.

Results serve as a basis for process improvements in other country organizations.

Overlapping
Usage

Thanks to mathematical optimization, a wide variety of scenarios and their effects on all areas of the company can be simulated precisely.

The challenge

To ensure the smooth operation of all the machines installed, Lavazza Professional employs a team of service technicians. These technicians are responsible for defined areas. The service includes regular maintenance and troubleshooting. While the former can be planned with long lead times, the planning cycles for trouble-shooting are very short. The latter account for the significantly larger share of all operations and thus represent a major challenge in the scheduling of orders. Here it is not only important to
eliminate the disruption as quickly as possible, but also to keep
the amount of unproductive travel time as low as possible. With the help of OPTANO the company wished to determine whether the use of software-supported route assignment would lead to a significant reduction in travel time.

Can the unproductive travel times of service technicians be reduced with Hulfe software-controlled route assignment?
How did you come across OPTANO?
Due to my previous experience in the field of operations research, I had searched the Internet for possible providers. It was important to me that the company not only had the mathematical know-how, but also a high level of consulting expertise.
From your point of view, what was the biggest challenge in implementing the solution?
The model for the scenario calculation should represent reality as accurately as possible, but without becoming over-complex. In my experience, there is always a latent danger of over-engineering in such projects. At the same time, it was important that the model deliver explainable and plausible results at all times. As you can imagine, a fine line. But we managed it together.
Do you have a favorite feature in the OPTANO solution and if so, what is it?
What-if scenarios are something fascinating. It is extremely exciting to simply change parameters and be able to look at how they directly or indirectly affect all relevant areas. A bit like being able to look into the future.
What do you appreciate about working with OPTANO?
You can tell that the colleagues at OPTANO are eager to find optimal solutions to every problem. There is real passion involved. In addition, they have a great deal of project experience, but also a lot of agility and methodological expertise.
Uwe Steinhardt
Finance Director
Lavazza Professional
A comprehensive simulation model was developed based on historical order data.

The Solution

In a first step, historical order data from the last three years was processed in detail. In addition to many other factors, the job location and urgency of the order played a role. On this basis, OPTANO developed a simulation model that accurately depicts all relevant order scheduling processes at Lavazza Professional. Detailed geo-information was also used to implement optimal route planning with the aim of minimizing travel time. On this basis, it was possible to evaluate various scenarios to answer the question of how high the productivity uplift would have been by using optimized route planning.

The success

Beyond the main benefit, optimization projects often have positive side-effects. The intensive study of data, which has often not been considered previously, results in a deeper understanding of the processes and cross-dependencies in the company among all the people involved. This understanding now helps to positively in-fluence future decisions in the long term. This was also the case at Lavazza Professional.

In terms of the main benefit, the simulation showed in different scenarios that only a marginal uplift would be achieved by introducing optimized route assignment. The intelligently tailored area assignment as well as the high level of experience and organization of the employees, many of whom have been with the company for many years, lead to a productivity which is close to the mathematically optimal result. In addition, there is another decisive factor: the good cooperation within the team. This means that tasks are quickly and unbureaucratically distributed among the team members when circumstances require – for example, when unscheduled new orders come in. This creates a high level of dynamism in the processes, which is largely responsible for the good performance compared to the mathematically calculated optimum.

Against this background, the company has decided not to introduce a software-supported route optimization and allocation system. Instead, accompanying measures are intended to strengthen knowledge transfer, autonomy and team-building aspects among the technicians. The results of the German study have aroused a great deal of interest in the other national companies and also serve there as a possible basis for tactical and strategic process improvements.

The simulation revealed surprising results that will have a lasting effect on Lavazza Professional's plans.

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