Toll Group, a company listed in the Australian Stock Exchange as the largest carrier in Australia, has installed a new computerized transportation system to unify and manage operations and administrative functions for its entire transportation network. Toll Group recently acquired most of the Australian transport assets of TNT and Mayne Nickless.
With sales of more than $1.3 billion (Australian) as of June 1999, Toll Group is the largest integrated multi-service carrier in Australia. Toll offers shippers a panoply of transport services, including longhaul, less-than-truckload, truckload, overnight, and parcel delivery, and specialized refrigerated services. The company also provides warehousing, distribution, inventory management, and logistics, as well as rail and sea services.
In the past two years, Toll has grown 275 percent largely due to an aggressive business strategy of mergers and acquisitions and the implementation of technologically advanced integrated logistics. The company was founded in 1888.
The new FACTS2000 package is based on advanced open-architecture software developed by Carrier Logistics Inc (CLI), a provider of systems technology for the trucking industry. FACTS2000 is designed to improve customer service and increase productivity for the multi-service carrier by bundling routing and dispatch with billing and administrative capability in one complete system.
The FACTS2000 is a combination of CLI's FACTS and ROUTRONICS products, and it does everything from freight pick-up and delivery to general ledger, says Kenneth Weinberg, vice-president of CLI.
"It is the most advanced, totally integrated, flexible transportation system in the trucking industry today," Weinberg says. "FACTS2000 is a total transportation system especially suited for the complex, growing, and fast-changing logistics environment. The system is designed to insure accurate, timely pick-ups, deliveries, freight-tracking, in addition to the administrative functions of automatic rate quotations, billing, and accounts receivable."
The software incorporates computer-assisted truck routing, mobile data communications, and resource planning and management. It can be upgraded easily to accommodate Toll's future growth, which currently exceeds 1,000 dispatchers, drivers, and administrative personnel, Weinberg says.
"The use of a single standard freight operations and administrative solution will enable Toll to streamline and replace the various incompatible systems it had inherited through its acquisition of other carriers," says Paul Little, Toll's managing director. "Using this software also will facilitate the sharing of pick-up, delivery, tracing, and financial information within Toll's vast network of suppliers and customers.
"The trends toward fresh food delivery, Internet shopping, and just-in-time manufacturing have led to a shift away from conventional methods of retailing, warehousing, and distribution, and prompted our customers and their suppliers to reduce their inventory and replenish stock quickly. Customers now require smaller deliveries more often, the ability to track product at all stages, and reliable pick-up and delivery schedules. With this advanced new technology, we'll be able to offer all those services more cost effectively."
The FACTS2000 system is built on a Progress fourth-generation relational database environment, providing a nonproprietary, open-architecture, web-enabled platform that can accommodate future system enhancements.
"We were impressed by Progress' reliability, speed, high performance, and user friendliness," Little says. "Progress also gives us the flexibility to custom-develop and modify applications to fit the individual needs of our customers and support them in pursuing new business opportunities."
Carrier Logistics Inc, Tarrytown, New York, has been a transportation systems and engineering consultant and developer of systems technology for the trucking industry for more than 25 years. The company's customers include several major US and Canadian carriers. CLI may be reached at: 914-332-0300 (phone) or by e-mail at [email protected].
