News
Monday, 28. June 2021
Opheo 6.0: Higher Performance, Lower Freight Costs
initions AG has recently introduced version 6.0 of its transport control center system Opheo which supports, i.a., the selection of the least expensive carrier, simplifies the mobile scanning of documents and facilitates the automatic notification of appointments. Opheo 6.0 thus offers further potential for digitizing processes, coupled with cost savings and higher performance. With real-time team planning now also available, Opheo also simplifies the simultaneous processing of the same tours in larger teams.
The new “Carrier Optimization” feature has been designed primarily for shippers and logistics service providers collaborating with several transport companies. This allows them to find and select the best-price service provider for single orders as well as for multiple tours. The carrier optimization is directly integrated in the OPHEO dispatch cockpit. All available carriers for an order or a tour are listed alongside the expected costs within a few clicks or optionally via drag-and-drop. On this basis, the most favorable carrier can be determined, selected and notified about the new order. The optimized and automated carrier selection relieves the dispatcher, whilst freight costs are reduced.
A further innovation of Opheo 6.0 comprises mobile document scanning by using the telematics app Opheo Mobile and the cameras integrated in the mobile devices. This new feature allows drivers to directly digitize delivery notes and weighing slips and link them to the related order. Easy-to-understand instructions guide drivers safely through the process. For this, initions AG uses the technology of the leading provider “ScanBot”, which has been integrated into the Opheo Mobile App. “Having the driver scan documents on the go is an additional building block for end-to-end paperless work,” Opheo Product Manager Toralf Kraft explains. This means that “even the previously inevitable paper documents handed to the driver by customers and consignees during a tour are reliably digitized and archived”.
The third novelty in Opheo 6.0 improves automatic notification about ETAs, enhancing this web-based feature, that has already been presented last year by another process step. As of now, customers can confirm or deny an advised time slot in a single click. However, this feature does not only support dispatcher-customer information exchange. Instead, the time slot confirmation triggers further automated functionalities in Opheo: once the customer has confirmed a time slot, it is automatically taken into account in the system like a regular appointment in the planning. This means that the appointment automatically becomes part of all further forecasts and the entire tour planning. If there are changes in the tour schedule or if the dispatcher wants to reschedule confirmed notifications, the system now actively alerts and warns him of any deviations. This new feature allows for even closer integration of customers into the planning of goods deliveries and optimizes customer service.
The estimated time window for the arrival of a shipment (ETA) was already made available to end customers in the previous Opheo version. For this purpose, the consignee can access a web link on a PC or smartphone which contains all relevant delivery information about his shipment. The quality of the ETA data is particularly high, as the calculation of the arrival times automatically includes upcoming driving breaks. Alternatively, Opheo users can proactively and also fully automatically inform their end customers about the advice note dispatch. For this purpose, Opheo users define in advance for which customers and upon which trigger event an advice should be sent. Trigger events can be, for example, loading completion, a specified remaining driving time or entering a certain radius around the delivery address. The notification can be sent either via e-mail or SMS.
Here is another highlight of the Opheo development: it is now possible to plan in real time within the team. “By shifting calculation-intensive planning tasks to the server and designing the processes asynchronously, several dispatchers can work on the same tours simultaneously in a high-performance manner,” explains Kraft. Team colleagues can immediately see planning steps and changes made by a dispatcher and take them into account in their own planning work. This provides additional flexibility when working together in larger teams. A side effect of the new real-time planning in the team: A high level of computing power now only needs to be maintained centrally at one location, while the decentralized clients can be configured to be much smaller and less expensive. Not only does this provide major advantages for multiple branch offices, but also for those companies whose employees are increasingly working from home.