Greggs Saves Dough with Paragon Software

DORKING, England, November 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Britain's leading bakery retailer Greggs will implement Paragon optimised transportation planning nationwide following a successful  pilot project. Using Paragon to optimise delivery routes from its Manchester depot enabled Greggs to rationalize its delivery journey mileage while maintaining service excellence. Since achieving these efficiency improvements and savings, Greggs has worked hard to implement its special "shop window" cost-effective delivery planning approach to another three depots and hopes to have completed the roll out to the rest of the UK by the end of summer 2012.

"The annual savings clearly show that by using the routing software to produce the best routes and to improve vehicle use, we can make reductions in certain operational costs while doing more with existing resources - and without stretching them. We have begun to see these efficiency improvements at additional depots and we aim to replicate these benefits throughout the entire UK operation over the coming year," says Paul Duggan, National Logistics Project Manager, Greggs.

"Transporting our fresh products to our shops is a key activity at Greggs and as we grow our number of shops, delivering to more locations in the UK, we want to do this without increasing our costs. Paragon is helping us achieve this as is demonstrated by our pilot in Manchester, where we now run fewer vehicles to service 170 stores. The drivers also benefit from the software because we are able to produce realistic routes and it allows us to incorporate their real-world experiences within our planning," he adds.

Paul Duggan goes on to explain: "Logistics is an important part of our business as we must be able to deliver fresh products to each store on time to keep our customers happy. Therefore, efficient deliveries help us to be successful retailers too. The software allows us to use a temperature controlled delivery concept that we call shop windows. Importantly, the software allows us to inform the stores of what we are delivering and when. This prepares them for the delivery, which also improves efficiencies."

Greggs has more than 1540 shops throughout the UK and is opening new stores weekly. It has 10 regional bakeries, and ambitious plans to open over 500 new shops in the coming years, all of which will benefit from Paragon planned temperature controlled deliveries.