Background

Genie online orders produced by the Pringle PCS Dev Team had acted as a front end to the Genie Industries European Parts Ordering operations since 2008. This multilingual tool accessed by the Genie Parts Team as well as customers.

Problem

The problem involved two main areas.

• Due to the varied size of parts offered by Genie (From screws to cranes) accurately measuring and packing shipments was impossible. Certain shipping options being chosen were not possible due to parts being hazardous or bulky.
• Delivery addresses entered into the system were not always entered correctly. In most cases the post code entered was not a valid postcode and did not conform to the Ceva delivery assignment system. This in some cases lead to the Ceva drivers not being able to find the destinations of the haulage.

Solution

To solve the problem the Dev Team implemented a major overhaul of the parts confirmation process and parts master.

• Firstly a web service was developed with Ceva to pass key parts information including dimensions hazardous and bulk flags into the parts master. This allowed the order system to accurately supply the customer or genie parts team with the correct delivery options.
• Secondly the combined measurements of the orders were calculated and sent with the confirmed orders back to Ceva. This allowed Ceva to accurately assign orders to delivery runs increasing the efficiency of their haulage operations for Genie Industries.
• Thirdly the Dev Team added an address validation web service to the parts confirmation section of the system to assist customers in entering addresses in European countries.

Current Status

The solution implemented has helped Ceva to increase the efficiency of their delivery operations. This in turn has lead to greater satisfaction in the Genie parts ordering operation.

The final product of this solution is reduced the costs of haulage to Ceva, Genie and Genie Customers.