Matthew Clark, a leading nationwide drinks distributor, has teamed up with Paragon to enhance its customer experience while minimising the impact of deliveries on the environment. The company has adopted Paragon’s routing and scheduling software to manage its fleet of 225 commercial vehicles based across nine regional depots. This will ensure Matthew Clark provides a consistent and efficient delivery of drinks products, which is an essential part of the unrivalled service commitment its on-trade customers have come to depend upon.

Matthew Clark undertook a review of the marketplace to identify multi drop routing software that would replace an existing system that was in use in seven of its nine depots. The Paragon solution was chosen for its greater planning accuracy, along with the availability of complementary modules that will enable the company to further enhance its delivery operation, future proofing the transport operation for continued growth.

The Paragon routing and scheduling software is already operational at depots in Birmingham, Southampton and Wetherby, with the roll-out to the remaining sites taking place over the coming months. Moving forward deliveries will be scheduled by a central planning team based in Wetherby, enabling the company to flex the boundaries of depots where necessary to achieve a reduction in mileage and CO2 emissions.

Customer order data is automatically transferred from Matthew Clark’s order management system to Paragon’s multi drop routing software, so deliveries can be quickly and efficiently planned on a next-day basis. The schedules must factor in a wide range of delivery variables based on the company’s diverse product range – including wine, champagne, spirits, beer and soft drinks – and the different types of customer premises. Typically, each two-man delivery team handles 15 to 20 drops a day, with the company delivering to 16,000 on-trade locations such as pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels.

Jacqui Allan, Head of Transport Planning at Matthew Clark commented: “For us, a delivery service that is accurate and arrives on time is absolutely critical to gaining competitive advantage. Our customers now need more varied and frequent orders to deal with the ever-changing tastes of the UK consumer, especially when sales space is at a premium.  Matthew Clark opted for Paragon Multi Depot to meet our requirements for a sophisticated multi drop route planning tool that will calculate accurate and efficient delivery routes to meet the just-in-time requirements of the on-trade marketplace. The implementation is going very smoothly and we look forward to realising the full benefits of Paragon’s software when the full roll out has been completed.”

William Salter, Managing Director of Paragon Software Systems commented: “For companies such as Matthew Clark, a consistently excellent customer experience is core to their brand values and to differentiating themselves in their marketplace. The accuracy and flexibility of our software means it can meet their immediate requirements while possessing the functionality to manage the ever changing needs of this very fast-moving industry.”

Paragon

About the Author: John Loughran