Parkwood Products Ltd. Digitized Its Entire Delivery Planning Process and Doubled Daily Deliveries With Upper Route Planner

The Results Achieved by Parkwood Products Ltd. With Upper Route Planner

100%
digitization of the delivery process.
90%
of planning time is reduced.
5%
or fewer complaints about damaged goods, thanks to proof of delivery.
60%
overall productivity increased.
200%
more deliveries achieved.

“The best feature for us was to be able to take pictures of the person with the product delivered. It helped us get rid of complaints about damaged goods on arrival.”

About Client

Parkwood Products Ltd. is a family-owned and operated business based in New Zealand. They specialize in manufacturing first-rate hand-made doors for public and private organizations, as well as individuals.

Over the last 20 years, Parkwood Products Ltd. has built a reputation for manufacturing premium, high-quality doors, shutters, and louvers for different types of buildings. They deliver their premium doors, shutters, and louvers across New Zealand.

Company LocationNew Zealand
IndustryManufacturing
ObjectiveTake full control of the delivery process

Situation & Challenges Faced By Parkwood Products Ltd.

Parkwood Products Ltd., a door manufacturing business, handled its delivery process in the following manner:

Used to manage and carry out delivery operations manually.
They were relying on delivery drivers to plan delivery routes.
Used Bing Maps for finding the address and receiving directions to reach there.
Drivers used to carry a printed, manual manifest to collect customer signatures.

Challenges faced by Parkwood Products Ltd. :

The lockdown caused them to deviate from their regular routes.
Manually estimating time taken to go from one stop to another.
Relied on the driver to plan & optimize delivery routes.
Wasted precious time in planning and optimizing routes manually.

How Parkwood Products Ltd. Planned Delivery Routes Before Using Upper Route Planner :

The driver used to enter addresses manually in Bing Maps.
There was no way to receive time estimates for the entire delivery schedule.
There was no clarity on how many deliveries they would be able to manage throughout the day.
Deliveries in unknown territories became difficult, especially during Covid.

Scale Your Delivery Business Operations & Save 90% of Planning Time

With Upper Route Planner, you can plan and optimize daily delivery operations and save up to 90% of planning time.

Solutions Offered to Parkwood Products Ltd.

Upper Route Planner Offered the Following Solutions to Parkwood:

A smooth, automatic process to plan & optimize multiple stops in a breeze.
Any admin team member takes control of the delivery process without requiring prior knowledge of the routes.
Import hundreds of addresses using an Excel sheet.
Accurate delivery time estimates for each stop and the entire delivery route.
Using Upper to capture delivery proof by way of capturing pictures or signatures.

Boost Productivity by 60% with Upper Route Planner’s Route Planning & Optimization Capabilities

Instantly plan & optimize up to 500 stops with our advanced route optimization algorithm TODAY!

How Upper Route Planner Helped Jacob Save Time & Expand Its Business?

Could you please tell me about your company and your clientele?

I work for a company called Parkwood Products Ltd. in New Zealand. We’re door manufacturers working towards creating doors that people love. Our typical clientele is anybody who requires a door, it could be a school, business organization, or even an individual client wanting a fancy door in the front of their house.

What specific issues led to you going out and finding a solution like Upper Route Planner? What made you search for a solution like this?

Until now, we had been doing things manually. However, we wanted to introduce our trucks for the purpose of delivering finished products.

We didn’t have much expertise in delivering. We relied heavily on the driver to do a lot of thinking and planning for us.

As a supply chain manager, I wasn’t really keen on a single individual to be able to do that for us. I started looking for a little bit of AI to do that.

Introducing Upper Route Planner to our delivery process was really good, which means I could take full control of what was going on, and I didn’t have to rely on the drivers. If I were away, anybody could step in and take control of the situation.

What was your process for deliveries before adopting Upper Route Planner?

Before we started using Upper Route Planner, we simply pulled up Bing Maps, put addresses that we were delivering to get time estimates for going from one stop to another, and repeated the same process for each delivery.

It wasn’t a particularly hard process, but it took a lot of time, and as you know, time is money, so we wanted to cut down the amount of time we spent delivering.

Are there any specific benefits derived from using Upper Route Planner?

Upper Route Planner helped us digitize everything. We no longer needed to create manual manifests that drivers needed to carry around and collect signatures on. They could just use the app and get to where they were going. Get the signature on the glass, and move to the next stop.

The best feature for us was to take pictures of the person with the product delivered. It helped us get rid of complaints about damaged goods on arrival. We could always use the photo to show that the product arrived as promised by the company.

Any specific instance that comes to your mind when you felt that it was good to have Upper Route Planner during that time?

During the pandemic, the lockdown caused us to deviate from our regular routes and use routes that our drivers were not necessarily used to.

We were able to chuck all the new deliveries in the app and give them to the driver. It gave him the confidence to go on routes he was not used to and it gave us the confidence to plan routes without knowing how long they would take.

How much time did Upper Route Planner help you save?

When we did it manually, we were not sure how many deliveries we would fit in a single route. Our drivers can only do so many hours before they need a break and so many hours after that. So not knowing how long each run was going to take and how long similar runs have taken in the past made us really just estimate every time.

Being able to look back at similar routes we saved into Upper and look at how long each stop was taking, we kind of managed to narrow down the time frame for each delivery, which allowed us to stretch out the routes, allow less time on certain deliveries and more time on others. It helped us point out how many deliveries we could do in a single day, per driver. That’s where the real benefit started to show.

Are there any specific benefits derived from using Upper Route Planner?

Would you recommend Upper Route Planner to others? If yes, anything specific about it?

Definitely, yes. As I said, it made it so easy for anybody to step in and do it and it doesn’t have to be me or anybody in my department. It’s just a simple app, you log on, check in the Excel sheet, and it does the address for you.

How is the customer support or technical support for Upper Route Planner?

Really, really good. We did have a few bumps in the road in the beginning. But even though we are literally across the other side of the world, the responses were quick, I had issues resolved instantly, and there were no interruptions on the delivery day.

I appreciate your quick responses, you’re taking the time to log in and solve the problems for me. It kept me out of a lot of trouble.

Digitize Your Delivery Process With A User-centric Software

Being a user-centric software, Upper Route Planner works towards making deliveries easier for varied delivery businesses!