BT targets cost and carbon emissions savings with upgrade to transport management system

The enhanced system, utilising Skillweb's proven Houndit mobile communication solution, will replace existing distribution processes and is designed to enable the reduction of transport miles travelled by more than 30 per cent in order to minimise costs and environmental impact.

Skillweb has been able to deliver a range of enhancements to the system following an extensive review to identify potential improvements to the IT infrastructure in terms of functionality, running costs and efficiency. This has included the virtualisation of the server hosting, which will reduce power demands from the transport management system by up to 80 per cent, and the use of Houndit's new Plan-it tool to reduce trip planning times by as much as 75 per cent.

By adopting the latest upgrades to the Houndit software solution and migrating the mobile computers used by 250 delivery drivers, depot staff and store hub operators to Motorola MC55s will provide real-time availability of tracking data using GPRS. This advanced solution will provide a flexible framework to both track the movement of parts via barcode scanning, POD, unattended delivery and the GPS location of individual mobile devices.

Meanwhile, the inbuilt reporting capability will enable BT SCP to consolidate multiple systems to provide its operational personnel with greater access to supply chain data to continue to identify efficiencies moving forward.

Julie Fisher, Head of Supply Chain projects at BT commented: "The updated mobile computing system, now known internally as BT TraX2, will ensure the effective distribution of parts from our National Distribution Centre in Magna Park and the Distribution Centre in Northallerton to the network of stores hubs for collection by local engineers or delivered direct to engineers' lockers where geography dictates."

"This latest solution will deliver significant improvements helping us to meet our service level agreements, whilst facilitating a reduction in distribution fleet mileage of in excess of 30 per cent. This represents a considerable saving in fuel costs with the added benefit of a reduction in the fleet size required to service the engineers demands for stores. An important part in ensuring BT remains competitive is to continually challenge how we provide our engineering teams with the most appropriate parts delivery service at the least cost, with the smallest carbon footprint. This latest upgrade from Skillweb will be instrumental in helping us achieve these goals."

Paul Ridden, Managing Director of Skillweb said: "BT SCP can plan and track spare parts and other essential transport movements from source to destination with an integrated suite of software in a virtualised server (Cloud computing) environment using web technology. This kind of solution is unique within the supply chain and vastly reduces the technology infrastructure required to deliver a system of this nature, reducing the carbon footprint and saving costs whilst delivering the highest levels of systems availability and security."

Skillweb has worked with BT Supply Chain Partners since 2002 to develop the comprehensive transport management solution. Known internally as BT TraX, it provides complete visibility of the movement of goods through the supply chain and has processed more than 100 million collections and deliveries to date with over one billion tracking events. This historical data has enabled BT SCS to analyse the delivery needs of its internal customers such as BT Openreach and BT Payphones to identify potential operating efficiencies and streamline the supply chain infrastructure.

ENDS