Itella Logistics Obtains a Competitive Edge With Quintiq

'S-HERTOGENBOSCH, the Netherlands, February 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Itella Logistics, a leading service logistics company in Northern Europe and Russia, gains a significant competitive advantage by implementing a fully integrated planning solution from Quintiq. Around 1,500 vehicles and 26 million transported shipments per year will be planned in just one single platform in Finland.

Itella Logistics was searching for a planning solution that would be able to handle the complexity of its business while increasing customer service levels, optimizing efficiency, and reducing the company's costs and carbon footprint. With Quintiq, Itella Logistics found an integrated platform capable of planning all of its operations ranging from pick-up and delivery planning and freight haulage planning to depot sorting planning. Itella estimates that this new planning system will provide a quick return on investment (ROI) by increasing the company's efficiency and improving its delivery performance significantly.

Optimal routing and resource assignment

The first project involves the planning of routes, combining them to form workshifts, and then determining the optimal drivers and vehicles  to use.

The Quintiq solution will use the forecasted number of shipments, incorporating seasonality, and will generate a resource master plan taking into account of pickup and delivery areas, the schedule of deliveries at a sorting center, and the availability of bulk mail, parcels and other transported shipments in a depot.  As the orders arrive at the sorting centers, they will be sorted, grouped and assigned to vehicles.  For all drivers and vehicles an optimal route will be created to deliver the orders, on time, in the most efficient way. Together with Itella's business rules and constraints, such as the strict working time regulations, workshifts will be created and qualified drivers will be allocated to vehicles.

Real-time integrated planning

The Quintiq solution will be integrated with Itella Logistics' domestic TMS system and continuously communicate with the handhelds used in the vehicles. If a disruption on the route occurs or if a new last-minute pick-up comes in, Quintiq will generate a new plan and the routes will be communicated directly with the drivers through the handhelds.

Mikko Särkkä, Head of Regional IT of Itella Logistics: "We wanted a first-class planning solution which could solve multiple complex and dynamic operations in a single platform. Quintiq showed us they were capable of handling this complexity and gained us an efficiency improvement already in the first pilots. Together with Quintiq, we will implement the project step-by-step starting in Finland and possibly expanding to other operating countries.  At this moment, there is no doubt Quintiq will give us a unique competitive edge in our geographical logistics market."

Arjen Heeres, COO Quintiq: "We are seeing more and more logistics companies benefiting from the Quintiq solution. The strong relationship which we've build up with Itella Logistics so far is unique and promising. The first pilots showed us good results and we expect this will only be the beginning of a great partnership."

About Itella Logistics

Itella Logistics, part of Itella Group, supports and develops the business of its customer companies by providing them with service logistics solutions for road, sea and air freight, warehousing and other contract logistics. Customers may outsource an individual element of their logistics process, or even their entire supply chain, to us. Itella Logistics has operations in eight countries (Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia). The company provides global services through its partners. The net sales of Itella Logistics was in 2011 MEUR 732 and it employed 7,100 persons. http://www.itella.com/logistics.

About Quintiq

Quintiq's revolutionary supply chain planning and optimization (SCP&O) platform enables enterprises to improve efficiency at every stage of the supply chain journey. It powers end-to-end planning and optimization of personnel, resources, and processes in a single planning environment, across all planning horizons. Many of the world's largest and most successful enterprises rely on Quintiq to achieve their business goals, strengthen their competitive advantage, and create new revenue streams.

Established in 1997 and growing rapidly, Quintiq has a global presence with dual headquarters in the Netherlands and the USA, a global development center in Malaysia, and offices around the world. Quintiq's software is in use at over 500 locations in 78 countries worldwide.

For more information, visit http://www.quintiq.com or follow @Quintiq on Twitter.

More information

Quintiq

Charlotte Poh 
Global Marketing Communication Manager 
T:  +31-73-691-07-39
E:   pressrelease@quintiq.com