Case Application :

Herms: Delivering change

8-14. How can a planning and mapping software help Herms to achieve a 95

percent first-time delivery target?

Planning 8-17. PPLICATION 1 Hermes: Delivering change Hermes is a pan-European courier company with over 40 years' experience in the business. It operates primarily in the United Kingdom, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Russia. In the United Kingdom, Hermes handles more than 245 million parcels a year. It relies on the growing "gig economy" employment trend with over 10. ver 10,000 self-employed cou- CAS riers and a network of 4,500 Parcel Shops. Hermes provides door-to-door services for any leading retailers including Next, ASOS, John Lewis, and Tesco. With a large and disparate workforce, planning and control is the key element in ensuring that the network remains effective and robust. Hermes needed a way to move As th the day-to-day management of their U.K. courier network to decision makers on the milest ground. Given the unpredictable demands on th courier network, Hermes needed to from be able to reallocate delivery rounds quickly if one courier was overloaded and an- equip other in an adjacent area had capacity to take up the extra work. busin In the United Kingdom, there are 1.8 million unique postcode addresses. Hermes Garn has allocated the 10,000 couriers to a number of these postcodes. The network is, Many therefore, extremely granular and subject to enormous changes on a daily basis. While and initially employing a centralized system to create and update courier rounds, Hermes boar realized this was time consuming and that the delivery maps produced became out- tion dated by the time the couriers started their deliveries. Hermes needed a management- their planning tool to optimize its network and assess what-if scenarios. smart In designing the new tools, Hermes decided to opt for a dynamic online mapping system that allowed them to create, view, organize, and manage the courier rounds. gerol The key elements include the viewing tools (allowing users to visualize the territories runn and courier rounds), the planning and operations tool (allows field management to sive change the structure of territories and submit their suggestions for approval), and boar the scenario planning tool (allows the central operations team to optimize and model dash territories to identify any possible efficiencies to the structure). The new planning sys- Garn tem enables the 200 field managers to make subtle and real-time adjustments to their mark operative areas on a local and tactical level. It also allows the central management a chance to look at the impact and effectiveness of the changes and then approve the and t changes in a matter of minutes. still The key benefits of the new planning tools had a direct and positive impact on the some goals of the organisation. There were operational savings (expenses and delivery costs cons were cut) and an improvement in service performance and efficiency. Courier turnover for a dropped as network members had a more even workload. It provided a holistic view of the network, allowed peak planning, and a continuous review of the network. Field servi managers can access the system via an iPad and they can make and see their planning changes immediately. The new planning system is scalable; so as Hermes continues to grow, they recog- 8-1 nize the need to make continuous and significant changes to their network structure. The system allows Hermes to visualize and identify existing and potential problems and model solutions for them. The system allows Hermes to pledge that every parcel 8- 1 entering the U.K. Hermes network by December 21, 2016, would have at least one delivery attempt, or Hermes would refund the delivery charge. $3 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 8-14. How can a planning and mapping software help Hermes to achieve a 95 percent first-time delivery target? 8-2 8-15. How can planning ensure that Hermes continues to meet its delivery targets in the future and at times when there is bad weather or high peak-demand