H. N. Nuttall is a family-owned business that supplies dry, chilled and frozen foods to the catering industry. Based in Manchester, the distributor supplies restaurants, hotels, care homes, hospitals, schools, colleges and other venues across England and Wales.
Inefficient route scheduling and no proof of delivery
Running its own fleet of around 20 trucks, H. N. Nuttall delivers weekly – and sometimes more – to its customers.
The company uses Microsoft Dynamics GP as its business software, and this includes load scheduling. But, says Andrew Vickerstaff, Director, “It isn’t very detailed for transport management. It doesn’t have planning functionality, vehicle tracking or proof of delivery. So it was never really good enough for our needs.”
He adds, “We were getting everything delivered, but without POD and tracking, we weren’t doing it as efficiently as possible.”
Taking a New Direction
One suggested Balloon One’s Springboard Delivery and a remote presentation of the software was arranged. Explains Andrew, “We had an amazing demonstration of the software. It ticked all the boxes for what we were looking for.”
The company implemented eight licenses of Springboard Delivery and also took the opportunity to upgrade the phones being used by its delivery drivers. Reveals Andrew, “The set-up and installation all ran very smoothly without any issues. Although we run 20 vehicles, we are easing our way in with a smaller number of licenses at first to see how it goes.”
Efficient Transport Management – With Even More to Come
Springboard Delivery has brought a new level of automation to H.N. Nuttall’s logistics. With planning, route scheduling, vehicle tracking and POD, it has helped the company to become more efficient.
Discloses Andrew, “What we find very useful is analysing the loads that we run currently and trying to find ways to make them more efficient. We’ve been closely scrutinising how we work and in seeing things more clearly, we can find ways to improve it.”
He continues, “We realise that with the way we were loading the vans, there was a fair bit of overlapping. We have a lot of different types of vehicles, with different weight capacities and it became evident that we weren’t using those in the proper way. We’d have a route set up that we always put a 7.5 tonne truck on, but it became clear that this wasn’t always necessary. Springboard Delivery has helped us analyse the business better.”
The company can now react more quickly to changes and can better plan its routes and loading. Springboard Delivery has helped to identify areas for improvement that will mean H.N. Nuttall can make its deliveries far more efficiently, and more productively.
Concludes Andrew, “Springboard Delivery has helped our business. And we’re not even currently using all of its features as well as we can be, so there’s even more to come.”
If you would like to learn more about Springboard Delivery, please call us for a free demonstration on 020 8819 9071 or contact us using the website form.