Areas that often deliver improvement include driver management, shift patterns, pick methodology, training, data capture, MHE, yard management, warehouse layout and warehouse supervision. This area is often overlooked, especially in transport operations so we have developed driver rota optimisation tools to maximise labour productivity whilst taking account of legislative requirements such as the Working Time Directive and new EU Drivers Hours regulations (2007).

The rota optimisation modelling uses output from any routing software and creates legal driver rotas whilst minimising the number of drivers required and minimising the use of agency drivers. Furthermore, client specific constraints can be handled regarding driver terms; for example, driver start times can have a maximum variation on a day to day or week to week basis to ensure that a driver has consistent shift start times.

This modelling has been carried out with several major retailers and has delivered significant savings in terms of driver numbers and agency usage.

If you are preparing for the impact of the change to EU Drivers Hours regulations on 11 April 2007, this could be of significant value to your operation.