COMMANDoptimize: Maximizing Profits & Customer Satisfaction
THANK YOU TO JIM WAGNER FOR HIS KNOWLEDGE AND WORDS IN DEVELOPMENT OF THIS ARTICLE.

Finding the balance between efficiency and service is a constant struggle for ready-mix producers. When business in our industry was thriving and efficiency was not on anyone’s mind, providing good customer service took a back seat to profits. Now that the market has softened, providing good service is more important but achieving greater efficiency is virtually impossible without the aid of new dispatch processes such as COMMANDoptimize. Questions regarding the utilization of company money and resources are raised monthly or, perhaps even weekly by management. COMMANDoptimize, our computer-optimized dispatching system, allows your operation to achieve that perfect balance between cost and service by optimizing use of your resources.

“COMMANDoptimize allocates loads to trucks in advance for the entire dispatch day, producing a precise driver call-in schedule to start the day off on the right track.”

What exactly does COMMANDoptimize do?
COMMANDoptimize creates and continually adjusts an operational plan for your current and next dispatch days. The system automatically allocates loads to trucks for the entire day, suggesting a detailed driver-call in plan for start of day and continually updating your real-time dispatch schedule and suggesting costeffective load assignments as the day progresses. It provides a significantly more efficient dispatch plan that up until now has been far too complex for the dispatcher to create.

How does COMMANDoptimize work?
COMMANDoptimize assigns a cost to everything. It takes into account the hourly and overtime costs associated with running different trucks. It calculates the plant opening, operating, and material costs of each mix. Lateness is assigned a cost that increases by increments as the lateness grows, depending upon the priority of the customer or job. COMMANDoptimize requires certain truck types or excludes certain types depending upon the customer’s wishes. Plant capacity, loading capacity, and truck haul capacity are additional factors considered. Taking all of your scheduling criteria into consideration, COMMANDoptimize quickly and efficiently performs calculations and recommends call-ins, load assignments, and where to return trucks that are washing down.

When does optimization occur?
COMMANDoptimize is “triggered” to reevaluate whenever an order, truck, ticket, or dispatch event occurs. These triggering events include: added, changed, or deleted orders; ticketing of a truck; all truck status changes. Optimization is occurring in real-time. The resulting dispatch plan is immediately updated on your computer desktop.

What does COMMANDoptimize consider as “optimal” cost and service?
A very important feature of the system is the optimization engine’s “cost” methodology. This approach gives management the ability to fine-tune real cost components to ensure that the company’s priorities are considered. Is the optimization program leaning toward too much lateness in lieu of better costs? Increase the cost of lateness in the program. Is too much deadheading being planned? Increase its cost in the program. In this manner, your company can tailor COMMANDoptimize to attain the balance between service and efficiency that is desired to meet your specific company objectives.

How does COMMANDoptimize impact delivery costs?
COMMANDoptimize can reduce delivery costs by quickly planning and rescheduling as the day progresses. Reductions in delivery cost per load will add up to significant savings at day’s end. When you start multiplying the cost of a “less-than-perfect” decision to your yearly yardage, you will quickly recognize the cost-effectiveness of COMMANDoptimize.

How do my dispatchers work with COMMANDoptimize?
All of the costs and constraints that go into making the “perfect” decision cannot be taken into account by the human mind. COMMANDoptimize, however, provides consistent planning and re-planning without fatigue, stress, or bias. Let COMMANDoptimize focus on “crunching” all of the numbers and alternatives associated with optimal efficiency and service. Dispatchers can choose the optimizer’s suggestion or an alternate option of their own. In either case, the dispatch day is automatically re-planned based on the dispatcher’s selection. With COMMANDoptimize, your dispatchers are freed up to be more proactive in meeting the challenges of the dispatch day.

COMMANDoptimize is the future of concrete dispatch technology, continually evaluating and updating your dispatch plan to maintain the optimal balance between cost and service. Optimization programs have been widely used and accepted in other industries for years and it is only recently that optimization has been considered and accepted for our industry. Your customers are ready for COMMANDoptimize, you should be too!

COMMANDoptimize is the future of concrete dispatch technology, continually evaluating and updating your dispatch plan to maintain the optimal balance between cost and service. Optimization programs have been widely used and accepted in other industries for years and it is only recently that optimization has been considered and accepted for our industry. Your customers are ready for COMMANDoptimize, you should be too!

What is Dispatch Optimization? Simply put, dispatch optimization is optimizing use of your dispatching resources. Your plants, trucks, drivers, and raw materials are managed as accurately as possible to meet or exceed customer demands and still generate the maximum profit for your company. You define what is optimal for your business, COMMANDoptimize will make it happen. Optimize your dispatch day with COMMANDoptimize.

The COMMANDoptimize Engine. At the heart of our Dispatch Optimization solution is our long-standing partner, ORTEC, one of the world’s largest providers of advanced planning and optimization software solutions. ORTEC has been in business for 27 years, has over 1,250 customers worldwide, and over 700 employees in offices in Europe, North America, Asia, and the Pacific Region.

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