Opheo 7 Takes Truck Dispatching to The Cloud

At the international trade show LogiMAT in Stuttgart (31 May to 2 June), Opheo Solutions GmbH presents OPHEO 7, the new version of the transport control center, which is the first version to be also available as a cloud solution. In addition, OPHEO 7 enables better integration of upstream and downstream processes, such as picking. Automatic break planning, which has also been enhanced and includes matching planned and actual breaks, allows you to optimize driver deployment and relieve the workload on dispatchers. The automatic notification function also ensures significant time savings by informing everyone involved in the process, from customer to driver, about plans, postponements and the current delivery status. Better visualization and site localization via satellite maps complete the range of novelties. You can find Opheo Solutions’s booth, no. F25, in hall 8.

Alongside the previous on-premise solution, from version 7, OPHEO is now also available as a SaaS (Software as a Service) solution in the cloud. Both system variants include the complete range of features. This is possible by leveraging the Azure Cloud’s virtual desktop technology. The Azure Cloud provided by Microsoft saves customers the cost-intensive investment required for in-house server infrastructure and IT personnel. In addition, it can be scaled almost infinitely if the scope of use changes. New locations and users are activated ad hoc and are ready for use immediately. The requirements for mobile working, which have considerably increased since the Covid-19 pandemic, are now completely mapped by the cloud-based solution, so that the dispatching department is no longer tied to a specific location, but can also work fully from home. In terms of systems up-to-dateness, backups and fail-safety, the cloud-based solution also offers a professional quality of operation that can only be realized on-premise at high cost. Microsoft guarantees a qualitative availability of the infrastructure of 99.95 percent when using Azure Cloud Services with data and applications being stored in Europe exclusively. In addition, implementation times for software rollout are substantially reduced with the cloud-based solution.

Intelligent Picking and Ramp Integration

Another major innovation in OPHEO 7 is the closer integration of the customer’s upstream and downstream processes. The transport control center can exchange transaction data of current and planned orders with almost all ERP or warehouse management systems. This allows, for instance, to determine the current picking progress with the actual number of pallets required and to consider it in tour planning with updated freight space capacities. Moreover, in OPHEO, the dispatcher can see at all times when which goods are ready for loading and is warned in cases any problems arise. There is no more need for time-consuming back-and-forth communication. Ramp assignment can also be optimized this way.

Enhanced Break Planning and Break Control

Likewise, the planning, monitoring and extrapolation of driving and rest times has been enhanced. An area in which OPHEO is considered a pioneer. The award-winning forecasting feature calculates, for example, whether the planned and notified delivery dates can be met based on the current tour. And it does not only do this for the current tour, but also for all subsequent tours scheduled for the affected tractor unit, driver, semitrailer or swap body. When the impending violation of a time window is forecast, dispatchers are automatically informed immediately—often several hours in advance. This forecast not only includes current traffic information, but also incorporates the actual data from the driver’s DigiTacho in real time. In the new OPHEO version, both scheduled breaks and breaks already taken are visualized directly in the tour plan and additionally analyzed in a controlling screen. For the dispatcher, this represents a huge relief with regard to the objective of ensuring optimum use of the available driving times of the increasingly scarce drivers and thus avoiding additional or empty trips.

Enhanced Automated Information of All Process Participants

OPHEO 7 also automates communication with all process participants, though. Customers, drivers, external transport service providers, colleagues working in the warehouse or at picking or in the sales department: all are automatically notified by OPHEO of any relevant changes in status or schedule. For example, drivers automatically receive tour data and associated working instructions for the following days in advance via e-mail or SMS. This allows them to prepare early for the following day’s activities, even if they do not yet have access to the telematics device in the vehicle. There is no need for prior personal or telephone coordination between the dispatcher and the driver. Notifications, which can be completely configured in advance, are sent automatically by the system without requiring any additional effort on the part of the dispatcher. In the same way, customers can be automatically informed as soon as their order has been received or scheduled in dispatching. These automatic notifications also represent a valuable tool in the company’s own sales or picking departments to ensure the greatest possible degree of information transparency among all parties involved in the order and transport process.

User Experience Enhanced
In terms of usability, OPHEO 7 continues to fully embrace intuitive use and a graphical visualization of all information. For example, the option of adding individual graphical icons to transport requests in the dispatching map and order views has been added. To make things even easier, OPHEO 7 givers dispatchers now the possibility to choose between the normal map view and the satellite view in all screens. The satellite view facilitates planning and site localization, when it comes to displaying available access routes to a company site, for example, or supplying sites of which only rudimentary address data is available.

Visitors to LogiMAT will be able to experience live all of OPHEO 7 ‘s innovations and intuitive user guidance. You can find Opheo Solutions’s booth, no. F25, in hall 8.