Logistic routes optimization

Technology Reply realized a Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics project for a large manufacturing sector customer to optimize its logistic network of goods distribution from production plants and warehouses to individual retailers.

The project

Technology Reply realized a Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics project for a large manufacturing sector customer to optimize its logistic network of goods distribution from production plants and warehouses to individual retailers. Efficient transport network has to adapt to the needs of the individual users of the service in order to reduce the costs and supply each retailer at the same time. In addition, to avoid unnecessary costs, it must be optimized according to the location of warehouses and customers.

The customer, world leader in the manufacturing sector, expressed the need for a data analysis and data discovery tool for the analysis of logistic KPIs and in particular:

  • analyzing specific KPIs related to shipments, such as quantity transported goods, distances, times required for transfers and associated costs

  • displaying the ideal location (weighed on costs) of a new warehouse (barycenter) on the basis of a selected set of customers or shipments

  • creating what-if scenarios by placing a new warehouse and simulating shipments to a subset of customers

  • comparing and managing previously created scenarios independently for each user

Solution

Technology Reply has fully implemented all application components, including the definition of business rules and end-to-end data management and visualization. Qlik Sense platform has been adopted integrating the standard functionalities with Geo Analytics connector which has allowed the management of all geolocation and route calculation activities and Vizlib extension for data visualization. Some of the main functionalities are:

  • data visualization and barycenter discovery through a mix of standard Qlik Sense and Vizlib graphic objects

  • geographic data visualization on maps provided by Geo Analytics extension

  • geographic coordinates discovery through Geo Analytics Connector services starting from postal codes and city and country name

  • creation, storage and sharing of what-if scenarios through On-Demand-App-Generation

Advantages

  • The usage of QlikSense as a data visualization tool allowed to obtain an intuitive graphical user interface combined with efficient data management.

  • The adoption of interactive maps has introduced an innovative and user friendly way of analyzing data.

  • Thanks to GeoAnalytics services the solution is completely independent from third-party services and APIs for the retrieving and usage of data related to geolocation and route calculation.

  • The usage of On-Demand-App-Generation, has brought to both a simplification of simulation procedure and a complete users autonomy in creating what-if scenarios and managing them (save, delete and compare), preserving at the same time an high-level and intuitive interface.