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Visit us from May 14 - 16 at the Dubai World Trade Centre to discover EPG's show highlights. Book a meeting with our logistics experts now!
Visit us from May 14 - 16 at the Dubai World Trade Centre to discover EPG's show highlights. Book a meeting with our logistics experts now!
Greenplan has gained further recognition for its all-inclusive solution for route calculation and circuit planning when it qualified for the finale for the best route planning software among all candidates for the German Award for Supply Chain Management 2023. It subsequently achieved third place overall in a strong field of competitors during the award ceremony that took place as part of the German International Supply Chain Conference in Berlin. This is now Greenplan’s third award in a row in 2023 after being honored for Best Product at LogiMAT 2023 and winning the Rhineland-Palatinate Innovation Award. Greenplan, part of the EPG (Ehrhardt Partner Group), has thus firmly established itself on the global logistics market in just two years.
The jury at the German Award for Supply Chain Management 2023 was particularly impressed by Greenplan’s high performance and innovative capacity in route calculation and circuit planning. Its algorithm is based on the logic of discrete mathematics rather than artificial intelligence. “Circuit planning becomes increasingly more complex each time more locations are added to a route,” states Clemens Beckmann, Greenplan CEO. “For example, there are 24 possible routes for four locations while there are more than 3.6 million options for ten locations. Others try to master this complex situation using artificial intelligence, for example. AI may find good routes, but it does not resolve the problem as efficiently as the Greenplan algorithm can.” Greenplan permits vehicle performance optimization in advance instead of leaving it until the vehicle is actually underway. This ensures efficiency improvements between 10 and 30%.
Greenplan thus helps all types of companies to meet common challenges in distribution logistics such as high costs, non-compliance with time windows, or reduction in CO2 emissions. The algorithm is based on principles such as the concept of overlapping districts – a unique combination between fixed delivery areas and fully dynamic planning. In contrast to conventional route calculation solutions, Greenplan also includes traffic flow speeds at different times of day into the calculation, meaning compliance with the agreed delivery times (ETA) increases to more than 97%.
Unique concept: Route planning with overlapping districts
Besides providing a means to plan circuits fully dynamically, Greenplan offers another unique concept: The algorithm uses planning with overlapping districts, providing the optimal combination of planning between fixed delivery districts and fully dynamic planning. For example, this concept does away with the fixed routes that are based on defined delivery districts, such as zip code areas. This means that delivery areas overlap one another at their boundaries by a few hundred meters. As a result, drivers can also deliver to addresses which actually belong to another employee’s delivery area if this is more efficient for the circuit overall. The decisive advantage is that over 80% of the known addresses are still serviced using this concept, which significantly reduces handling times. Compared to planning with fixed delivery areas, dynamization ensures delivery vehicles are used to an optimum degree in fringe areas and reduces the duration of circuits. This ultimately saves on costs and vehicles, generates fewer CO2 emissions, and ensures less stress for drivers.
