Saint Gobain _ORTEC_route_optimasation_transport planning

Saint Gobain Germany – SAP Logistics Route planning in the Construction Industry

Company-wide standardisation of the transport planning processes at ISOVER G+H and RIGIPS with the ORTEC for SAP integrated route planning solution.

Standardised transportation planning across market outlets and construction sites

Saint-Gobain is headquartered in France and has a yearly turnover of around € 41 billion. The group designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which can be found everywhere in our living spaces and daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure and many industrial applications.

Saint Gobain _ORTEC_route_optimasation_transport planning 2

Improving collaboration across teams

Transportation costs in the construction materials industry are relatively high in relation to the product value. Customer orders often need to be changed at short notice, during or even after planning. Having highly efficient routes is very important. As part of a supply chain digitisation project, Saint-Gobain planned to further increase the productivity of transportation planning for the products of their subsidiaries ISOVER (thermal insulation) and Rigips (drywall-systems).

In addition, they were looking to maximise the utilisation of their external forwarders’ truckloads. Dispatchers regularly planned up to 2 weeks in advance and reserved appropriate load space, as well as the number of trucks for the expected shipments. But they faced several integrational hurdles.

Route planning for ISOVER-Products is organised at the central logistics headquarters in Ludwigshafen/Germany and Rigips-products are dispatched from Scholen/Germany. The two teams, which operate separately, were hardly able to support each other when planners fell sick or took time off. At times, this resulted in delivery problems.

SAP integrated route planning and company-wide dispatching platform for optimised transports

To standardise company-wide transport planning processes, Saint-Gobain chose the ORTEC for SAP integrated route planning solution. With the introduction of ORTEC for SAP, a company-wide dispatching platform was set up. Transport planning processes were standardised. The system landscape was unified, avoiding cost-intensive interfaces. Route planning is now based on SAP Orders and SAP Deliveries. Full truck loads are automatically planned by the ORTEC add-on, while less than full loads are planned manually. All relevant information is automatically sent to Saint-Gobain’s contract freight forwarders or via a tender in their logistics platform, Transporeon. The complete SAP worklist is accessible at any time. Orders can be selected in the ORTEC for SAP status module.

Saint Gobain _ORTEC_route_optimasation_transport planning 3

“Thanks to automated planning in ORTEC for SAP, our planners save a lot of time day-to-day, especially when communicating with customer service and forwarders. The time saved can now be invested in improving rate management to find the best forwarder for the planned tour. We also have more time to solve difficult individual problems. Centralised planning with simple updates is another great advantage for us. Process standardisation and high flexibility enable our dispatchers to take over the planning of other subsidiaries when needed.”

Thomas Muschalla
Project Management
Saint-Gobain

Lower costs with optimised logistics

The implementation of ORTEC for SAP at ISOVER and Rigips enabled Saint-Gobain to optimise their logistics processes and significantly reduce costs.

Highlights:

Combination of cargo flows and products for the different brands
Access common load space resources
Vehicle types are optimally matched to each order, based on unique requirements
Coordination time, previously spent on email and phone communication, was drastically reduced
Automation possibilities and different approaches of ‘supra-regional planning’ or ‘region-based planning’
High-level of acceptance among the company’s planners
Smooth implementation / stayed completely within the budget

Given the positive results, Saint-Gobain plans to introduce ORTEC’s route planning solution in other subsidiaries and implement ORTEC’s Load Building module.

Download: Case Saint-Gobain – Construction materials