Die Power der Einfachheit: Erfolgreiche Tourenoptimierung im Handumdrehen!

SATLOG academy

Tourenoptimierung mit HERE Technologies: Komplexe Hintergründe einfach erklärt von Amol Naik – Lead Product Manager

English transcript:

Speaker 1 (00:05)

The money is on the street. Welcome to the telematics podcast of the SATLOG academy. Every month, interested fleet managers, logistics managers, controllers and dispatchers will find interesting facts about controlling the truck fleet, optimization, digitalization. My name is Jürgen Stausberg. I am the managing director of SATLOG GmbH, which has been helping fleets in the beverage, fresh produce, recycling, construction logistics, freight forwarding, bakery, and mill industries to increase fleet efficiency with industry-specific solutions and telematics since 2000. The power of simplicity. Successful route optimization in the blink of an eye. And here with us today is Amol Naik from HERE Technology and he's going to show us the background of tour optimization. And this is, after all, a complex thing and it's based on HERE map technology. And I remember very well how I first found an internet map on my very lame PC more than 22 years ago. And at that time it said NetSolut underneath and I immediately drove to a startup office in Frankfurt and that was the start of the cooperation that has now been working very well for over 22 years. And HERE map technology makes it possible to show cars on the map, but also to optimize tours. And if you ask ChatGPT now, as they do all the time today, about the concept of route optimization, you get the following answer: Truck route optimization is special because it helps to make the transport of goods more efficient.

Speaker 1 (02:10)

By optimizing routes, order sequences and delivery times, companies can save a lot of time and money, reduce fuel consumption and improve their carbon footprint. At the same time, delivery reliability and punctuality are increased, which contributes to customer satisfaction. So an efficient truck route optimization you can achieve both economic and environmental benefits. From my point of view, this is very well summarized and sums up everything that can be achieved with tour optimization. But this is a very complex issue. In the past, you had to spend a lot of time on the setup of an optimization. And today on the podcast, we have Amol Naik from here Technology giving us insights into the complexity. Amol Naik has been in the high-tech technology scene for 13 years and has been a project manager in those very technology areas at here for five years. And welcome Amol Naik to our podcast today.

Speaker 2 (03:25)

Thank you, Mr. Stausberg. I look forward to the opportunity and I hope I can answer your question.

Speaker 1 (03:32)

Yes, exactly. Yes, there are so many map providers, TomTom, Google, NavTech here. And HERETechnology is yes one of the really big ones, so that's also installed in BMW and Mercedes. And maybe you can say a few words about HERE. After all, we've been working with this technology for more than 22 years.

Speaker 2 (03:55)

Exactly. So what you also said at the beginning, so we were as I said MAPSOLUTE 20 years ago as a startup. But after that, we've also grown a lot. So we play a very important role in the automotive industry, where we have just almost 75% market share when it comes to navigation systems, where our map is delivered. Not only simply because of market share, but also in terms of research. We invest a lot of money to make the map display automatic nowadays with machine learning and artificial intelligence. We have a large engineering team that tries to keep the data fresh. That is an advantage. Secondly, that we also invest a lot of money so that we can also provide the data precisely for the purposes that you said, for trucks, for route optimization, for example, precisely for trucks, which the others perhaps don't do, because trucks are not cars, by definition. And therefore, that is also where we just invest a lot of effort and time so that the routes we calculate, the tour we optimize, fit exactly, so that the driver relies on it and drives safely and sustainably.

Speaker 1 (05:10)

Yes, yes, our navigation systems in the trucks do include the map technology here. And how often have I received calls from truck drivers navigating with our tablet and oh, there's a new road closed since last week and so on. And these are all things like that, bridges, heights and truck widths, which they always add to the maps in real time. And that is something very special and important for the truck drivers. Exactly. How is a digital map created? You always read that the scouts drive through the streets and have a propeller on top. And how do you actually imagine that? Is there a large fleet? Yes, how does that actually work?

Speaker 2 (05:58)

Yes, exactly. So we also have a large fleet. And now it's no longer the case that we just do the cartography manually, but also very much by machine, so to speak. That is, the cars are equipped with many sensors, lidar for example, so that we can access the 3D mapping of roads or buildings or so in 3D the data. And this data is then automatically sent to the cloud. There, the data is also processed, again with machine learning and a lot of automation software. And then the data is also produced directly in a map, so to speak. And the cars, we have also seen, sometimes they also drive on the roads where there is a lot of traffic. That is, if such data, if we have the data available, then they also go for for example Traffic or what we also say with us, Road Incidences. That is, we not only map the roads such, but also such events where there is congestion or where there is a road closure. It also goes so far that many of our customers, for example the car manufacturers, we also have the possibility that they send us anonymized data about their cars, for example speed regulations or so that we are allowed to process them again with our GDPR client and also make them available to our end customers.

Speaker 2 (07:30)

That means that it's not just about our own fleet, but also about our customers having the possibility to send data to normal passenger cars. What we have also released today or recently is our Unimaps technology. That is, now there is the possibility that the customers themselves can process their own data with us and also make it available for other customers or just for themselves just the map display a little bit can also address the issue. This technology is completely automated and we are looking forward to customer feedback.

Speaker 1 (08:07)

Yes, there is also a lot from the mobile phone providers. So in our navigation systems, there's the, the traffic and the navigation, that's almost pinpoint accuracy. You drive to the end of a traffic jam and the map says. This is where the traffic jam begins. So it's always fascinating how up-to-date this traffic information is. Exactly. Where is the data processed? They must be very large databases. And in Germany, there's always the fear, oh, is it somewhere in a foreign country and is my data protected and so on.

Speaker 2 (08:44)

So the data that we collect ourselves is also processed on the public cloud. But nowadays there are also a lot of possibilities how to protect them, how to process them competitively or how to process them in a scalable way. So we are one of the big customers of AWS. We also have many strategic initiatives with AWS, for example for logistics, where AWS helps us with its services and expertise to better develop the application or the services. That is an advantage when we work very closely with public cloud service providers. That's one. But when it comes to customer data, we are a typical European company with headquarters in Eindhoven and Berlin. We all know how important this GdBA is for us, personally as well. And we also pass this on to our end customers. So if they want to protect their own data, then we have so-called REALM on platform, where the customer himself can set who has the right to process the data. Mostly it is about companies own data that are submitted and then just also different departments that has different access rights on it. It's not just about competition, it's also about internal in these large companies, so to speak, the selection of who may or may not access what data.

Speaker 2 (10:17)

We see this also in Transport Management System. For example, a user who sets or manages the prices is not allowed to see the data for the execution of this tour. So there are also different roles in this company and so accordingly we also have the possibility to set the user control or data access.

Speaker 1 (10:40)

Exactly, the other day I saw a special video from here. It's a very big topic, because here we have this data security, that nothing gets out and so on. Exactly. And now we come back to optimization. What forms of optimization are there? You can simply enter "drive from A to B" on the map, or you can do the same with the navigation system. I want to go to Mannheim to the main train station and so on and then it starts to plan a route. Or there is also the entire order pool. And what are the different planning scenarios? What can you actually do?

Speaker 2 (11:17)

So very generically speaking, there are two types of route optimization, so-called A to B, which is yes Traveling Salesment Problem. That's what we solve every day, so for example if I'm driving from my house to the office, then it's classic Travelling Salesman. I try to travel as short as possible, as fast as possible and as cheaply as possible to B. That's one of them. That is one. But that is possible. Or that is very important when it comes to trucks, tours and optimization. Of course, because we want to save costs. We want to produce our ETA on schedule. That's what this Travel Salesman is. But what we are also developing, and you also have experience with this, is this tool Planning, which is fleet-wide, which is fleet optimization. Here, a user can optimize the entire fleet in one request. Of course, this is very complex and requires a lot of computing power. And here we also have the possibility to design the tool planning with Tool Planning. But of course we're moving on now. We also want to look at the future, where we have electric vehicles, probably also hybrid trucks. And there we also have to look, where are the charging options?

Speaker 2 (12:33)

Where is the next charging point? Is that enough, my battery level up to my destination or do I have to recharge somewhere in the middle? The constraints, we also need to map those now slowly should/must. We also have our EV routing, especially for electric cars or with our tour planning there is the possibility that you can predefine the maximum distance and then the trucks or the tour or the gates are optimized, where the gates or the diamonds or the distances do not overlap this limit.

Speaker 1 (13:10)

Exactly. So that's more or less that the system automatically optimizes the tours like a cloverleaf. It's already high tech and it's incredibly fast and we're so happy. And are there any insights into how much you can save with optimization? SATLOG always comes up when we press the button, optimize for three minutes, and then afterwards we have the costs per transport unit. That is always the important factor, to take absolute costs and then see them in connection with the transport performance of the quantity, and we come out with between 10 and 15 percent. Have you heard similar figures from other companies or do you have any insights?

Speaker 2 (13:59)

Yes, we also have such findings from our customers, who build complete transport management systems with us with our complete stake. We have also counted 15% savings or with cost optimization. But it is not only about costs, it is also about automation advantages. That is, many of our customers have automated many processes. And that is of course not only for the customers, but also for the dispatchers very, very, very happy with the workflow, that you can optimize the whole tour with one click. Not only do you save time, but there are also options if something changes, i.e. a truck is somehow not available or a driver says I don't want to go to B but to C. You can dynamically reintroduce such constraints and get the new tour immediately. And that's a huge advantage. There are benchmarks, but it's also the customer experience, which we say is not so easy to measure. But we see that as a huge advantage as well.

Speaker 1 (15:07)

Yes, yes, that is exactly what is important. That's the advantage in the office, where you suddenly don't have to spend so much time looking back and forth on an Excel list, but you can see it transparently on the map. And where is the journey going with the developments? We've just been talking about electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and so on. Can you say anything about that?

Speaker 2 (15:35)

Well, I can also name two points for me that are only professional, but also very personally important, where we are moving. One is sustainability. That's very clear now, when we see outside, it's not just about some slogans or some goals, but we have to optimize our products or our work to such an extent that we have to make a small contribution so that we can live sustainably. That means we will now gradually look at how we can embed sustainability in our products. That means with touring planning, which I said, that we will slowly also be able to embed electric vehicles or plan tours for them, or have the data with charging stations so that we can rely on the fact that I can charge at these charging stations, for example. We also want to update such data and make it available to our customers. But for routing optimization, I see that we also have to link planning with execution. That means that if a dispatcher says this is the most cost-effective route, we also have to see whether the driver really adapts to it and drives in the same way, because that's where the advantage is. And it's not easy to combine execution with planning.

Speaker 2 (16:54)

Nobody wants the work to be observed or anything like that. That's why it wouldn't be that easy. But I think that's a win win situation is. Driver gains a lot of time from it or also drives safer for example and delivers the benefit of cost optimization further to the client. Yes, exactly. We see it as completely harmonious, so to speak. That's two advantages. Two directions.

Speaker 1 (17:20)

Yes, very good. And then finally, do you have an anecdote from your years of working in that environment. Did the trucks actually always arrive on time?

Speaker 2 (17:33)

So we have Amazon, for example. We all know how customer centric Amazon is. With my first child, we always relied on our Nappies from Amazon arriving exactly at the time when we didn't have a supply of Pampers. Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, if the yes, that we do not necessarily go to the nearest DM and then sell the Pampers, but the supplier delivers to us.

Speaker 2 (18:00)

Always on time.

Speaker 2 (18:03)

That's exactly the experience that we have. And again and again, that's not only for us as an end customer, but also for companies. When we talk about just in time, inventory management, it's very important for large customers that the shipments or the containers get to the customers on time.

Speaker 1 (18:21)

Exactly the time window and that can be compared to actual. Wonderful. Simplicity, that's what we're talking about today. And in order to be able to plan, it is necessary to have standing times, travel times, which HERE provides. And from telematics, you can very easily determine target times, and SATLOG does that, and accordingly has such achievable time windows for each individual customer within three minutes at the push of a button, and optimizes accordingly at the push of a button. And that is the special feature of this solution. That's it for today's podcast. Amel Naik from here. Thank you very much and see you next time.

Speaker 2 (19:05)

Thank you, Mr. Stausberg. Thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (19:08)

Yes, thank you very much. Bye. Bye.

Speaker 2 (19:09)

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye.