July 13, 2004
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Highlights:
- User News
- Enhancements
- Routeview
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New Locations!
BJ Electric opened a new branch in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and Laconia Electric announced the opening of a new warehouse in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire. For both distributors, these represent their fifth locations.
Edison Equipment announced plans to move into a newer, larger facility to host their growing business in Columbus, Ohio.
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LaSalle Company
became our first user to go live on an LX7150 Clear/Path.
Hornung Golf Products ordered an LX7150.
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Brock-McVey recently
began bar-coding their pick tickets as part of a new imaging system.
Note: Not all printers support bar-code.
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Tradepower, provider
of the Web Customer Service Center, was acquired by Prophet 21.
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Recent Enhancements
- Ability to add internal
(destination = N) narratives to orders that have already been billed.
- Something for the bigger
distributors: A new In/Out Board program that tracks whether associates are
in or out of the office. When you check out, there is a free-form area
to say when you'll be back, explain your whereabouts or any other pertinent
information. Optionally, you can save the time records created by the
subsystem for export to your payroll processor.
- And something for the
smaller sites: There is now a spot in the system parameters for you to specify
a default warehouse. If defined, this will automatically prefill on various
inquiries and maintenance screens so that your users don't have to always
type in 01.
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Routeview
- Verify and correct
ship-to addresses
- Locate stops
- Assign the stops
in sequence to routes
- Print a manifest
and optional trip and street maps
- Set time windows
for deliveries
- Can reduce routing
time by up to 75%
- Reduces miles driven
by up to 20%
- Reduces driver overtime
- Increases customer
satisfaction with more on-time deliveries.
With the rising cost of fuel, truck insurance and employee benefits, now might be a good time for those distributors who do their own deliveries to take a look at optimizing this aspect of their business.
One such solution is Routeview – a Minneapolis based company that PSI has agreed to partner with and integrate with the Power Plus package.
Routeview includes two modules. The primary package is their Route Planning Software. We would send the order information from the Plus database to the Routeview PC. There, the Route Planning Program would:
Routeview states that their package:
Routeview is used by Viking Electric of Minneapolis, and Border States Electric, based in North Dakota. It is the only routing software provider to be endorsed by NAED.
In addition to their Route Planning module, Routeview also offers a GPS based Real-Time Tracking and Measurement module. Using hand-held computers or some of the newer cell phones, the drivers are kept in communication with the warehouse manager. The Routeview system is notified of each arrival and departure from a stop. This, in turn, updates expected arrival times for the rest of the deliveries.
Please contact PSI if you desire more information or a demo of Routeview's products.