Central Dispatch on the Internet: Web-Based Dispatching Beats Out the Competition
The Problem:
Concrete producers face many challenges, including optimizing driver resources, improving on-time deliveries, reducing delivery costs, and decreasing the dispatcher’s workload.
It is too costly and tedious to set up and maintain a central dispatching system for many producers to take advantage of its power. Concrete producers with a few plants must not only buy the dispatching software, but also a computer server.
The dispatch program also has to be installed, updated, and maintained in all the computers that have access to the dispatch. Then, Local Area Networks (LAN) and Wide Area Networks (WAN) must be built. Other concerns include what happens during a lightning strike?
The Solution:
The solution is a web-based central dispatching program, ideally integrated with truck tracking like Sysdyne’s Cloud Native ConcreteGO Dispatch software. Centralized order taking and dispatching helps make day-to-day operations more efficient.
Producers can implement a state-of-art central dispatch system without a big upfront investment in hardware, software, or IT specialists and still get the traditional dispatch functions and even more from a desktop browser for a modest subscription fee.
On-demand software
ConcreteGO allows dispatchers to enter all orders, assign/deploy trucks, send tickets to batching computers, and transfer tickets to their accounting system for billing. Online central dispatch has changed the idea from buying software to renting software using the web, a concept known as software on-demand or software-as-service (SaaS).
In this case, the responsibility for hosting, maintaining, and upgrading the software and hardware of the Concrete producers is on the software company (Sysdyne). There is no hardware to procure, no large up-front license fee, and no complex set-ups. Even better, if the software isn’t to a customer’s liking, they can just stop paying.
Low cost and simplicity are not the only advantages of an online central dispatch program. ConcreteGO also improves on several aspects of traditional central dispatching programs.
Management is able to respond to changes promptly by being in touch with the business in real-time. From inventory to delivery schedules, managers can keep a close eye on dozens of variables, including daily production, all from the internet and a handheld device.
Since it’s a one-too-many hosting model and different applications have been integrated into the hosting service, it’s easier and costs less for customers to get an upgrade. This is particularly important for producers who have not been able to upgrade their GPS service because they were cut loose from their vendors by the “middleman” who bundled a third-party GPS service with their own dispatching program.
Data and information can also be transferred more easily with web-based dispatching. Salespeople can easily enter their orders and watch the fulfillment process. Having multiple dispatching accounts and many management tools, it will become a marketplace for contractors to check their deliveries.
Link to original article by Concrete Construction
