Future Products opens the door to Paragon automated delivery route planning

Window, door and conservatory manufacturer Future Products has revolutionised its transport operation with computerised delivery route planning software from Paragon Software Systems.

Using Paragon for the daily dynamic planning of deliveries has cut the time it takes to plan its transport operations from one day to one hour.

Future Products, a Nottinghamshire-based family business, supplies a range of windows, doors and conservatories to trade customers throughout England and the south of Scotland.

The company currently operates from three depots and is planning to open another three in the future, in line with business growth. Future Products will use the software to strategically plan the sites of the new depots, locating them where the company can best serve its customers. The software will also enable the company to investigate the feasibility of extending its delivery capability to other parts of the UK that it does not currently supply.

Running fixed routes with variable quantities of high value, breakable products on board each vehicle, Future products identified a need to remove manual planning and paperwork from their delivery operation. With complex delivery requirements due to the type of product being transported, planning deliveries on paper was taking many hours to complete, this was seen as valuable time they could use to improve customer service.

Future Products is confident that the Paragon delivery route planning software will boost customer service, improve reliability and reduce operational costs. The company assessed Paragon after strong recommendations from its two main suppliers – Synseal Extrusions and Door Stop International.

“We spoke to our partners and they said that Paragon had been their ‘secret weapon’ for accurate routing and scheduling. They use the software to provide us with reliable on time deliveries and we recognised the software could do a similar job for Future Products. Paragon showed the software to us and it was clear that it would relieve us of a major time-consuming task.” Stuart Bower, Technical Services Manager, Future Products.