Sign up for logixcentral live web demo

13th February 2006

See a live web demonstration of our innovative online vehicle scheduling software, logixcentral, without even leaving your desk! All you need is a web browser and a telephone.

The next web demo is on Wednesday, 1^st March at 3pm. As places are limited, please register your interest here.

Come and talk to us at stand 45/46 and discover how you could make our web-based vehicle scheduling software logixcentral part of your complete end-to-end supply chain solution.

EDM, the UK's leading Electronic Document Management specialists have chosen logixcentral to manage their fleet of vehicles. Their vehicles collect valuable documents in a secure, reliable and timely manner from companies throughout the UK and in Europe. Once collected, the documents are then taken to one of their national network of document conversion facilities to be converted into electronic format. EDM has the largest scanning capacity in the UK with the ability to scan 750 million images a year.

DPS was among five companies who showed off their 'best of breed' approach to supply chain management at the first Logistics Showcase event at Old Trafford yesterday.

The half-day event was chaired by Stephen Rinsler, the Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport UK; and Martin Williams, Director of Bisham Consulting, who project-directed a recent study on supply chain needs, was present to give the main findings. The Logistics Showcase team presented 'a day in the life' of an end-to-end order for fictious company 'Melchester Rovers'.

Following the presentations, attendees were able to talk to the Showcase companies about their specific supply chain needs and after lunch, delegates enjoyed a tour of Old Trafford.

View the presentation online or download it (4.3Mb)

We are all familiar with the concept of The Perfect Order: The capture of the customer order, the fulfilment of that order and the prompt payment of the invoice. Unfortunately, for many companies, achieving this perfect order is still out of reach - and all too often a perfect storm is the result. Why in today's age of advanced supply chain systems is this the case?

A study conducted by UK supply chain consulting company Bisham Consulting has clearly indicated that medium-sized companies cannot necessarily meet their supply chain solutions needs from traditional ERP providers. As part of an initiative to identify and meet the needs of these mid-size companies, Bisham, one of the UK's leading independent supply chain consulting companies, was called in to identify the need and build a business case for appropriate offerings.

Following the study, DPS have joined with four other leading supply chain IT solution providers to offer mid-sized companies a sensible, cost-efficient supply chain alternative to major ERP offerings. Our partner companies in this initiative are Deltion, Destiny, Fleetwood and Red Prairie, all of whom are market leaders in their own specialised spheres.

The supply chain offering, which will be launched at a series of free showcase events - www.logisticsshowcase.co.uk - starting in November at Old Trafford, Manchester (Tuesday 8th) and Pinewood Studios, London (Thursday 10th), is modular allowing companies to pick all or whichever parts are appropriate for their business needs. The key elements of these web-based solutions are order management, warehouse management, vehicle routing and scheduling, tracking and tracing and proof of delivery.

The half-day event will be chaired by Stephen Rinsler, the Chairman of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport UK; and Martin Williams, Director of Bisham Consulting, who project-directed the study, will be present at each event to give the main findings. We will take you through 'a day in the life' of an end-to-end order. After lunch, a tour of the Manchester United Trophy Room/Pinewood Studios will close the event.

Attendance is free, but places are limited. You can book your place at either event by clicking through to www.logisticsshowcase.co.uk, where you will also find the agenda and full details of the companies involved.

logixcentral revolutionises the way businesses can perform vehicle scheduling. It is an Internet-based, pay-as-you-go service which can be used on any computer, anywhere without any software installed on your local computers.

logixcentral is a natural development of the long-established LogiX family of vehicle scheduling and routing software tools and we would like to offer you the opportunity to attend one of a series of open days to be held at our UK office on the following dates:

• Tuesday 19th July
• Tuesday 13th September
• Tuesday 11th October
• Wednesday 9th November

The agenda for the day is:

10.00 What is logixcentral?
10.30 How much could it save my company?
10.45 How else will it benefit my company?
11.00 How does logixcentral work and how easy is it to use?
12.00 How can logixcentral be integrated into corporate systems and what sort of reports can it produce?

12.30 Buffet lunch

13.00 Workshop and training
16.00 Close

If you would like to attend an open day, please complete our online form.

We look forward to meeting you.

DPS is hoping to win a generation of new converts to vehicle scheduling and routing
with its pay-as-you-go online model

Whilst many forms of supply-chain software have been made available in hosted online versions in recent years, this approach has not so far been adopted widely for routing and scheduling systems. Now DPS International is planning on changing all that with a hosted version of its established LogiX suite, logixcentral.

Managing director Paul Palmer says the company "has done something very special" with this development, and believes it could open up a potentially huge new market for routing and scheduling of software, especially in the small business sector. He goes so far as to predict that the majority of future LogiX users could be running the system on a hosted basis within five years.

Historically, routing and scheduling software has usually been installed and hosted locally by operators, who pay for it on a classic per-user licence basis. Palmer reckons this approach can prevent users getting the most out of it.

"A company might only have enough demand to warrant a single software licence, yet need to run simulations in different parts of the country at different times. You can get the crazy situation where someone has to get in a car and drive two hundred miles to transfer the software protection 'dongle' between locations."

A hosted solution overcomes this problem, he says. "You can access the software from any computer at any time, so long as no more than the licensed number of users are accessing it at the same time. Schedulers won't even have to come into work at the weekend - they can do the job from home."

Not that the new version is limited to strategic planning. It has been conceived from the outset as a full replacement for the conventional version, capable of running both strategic and day-to-day routing and scheduling tasks. Palmer says the launch version has 90% of the functionality of the existing user-hosted version, "and it will have 100% of the functionality within six months."

The pricing regime behind DPS's hosted model brings a major change. Typically, according to Palmer, users might pay around £25,000 for a fully-fledged rouging and scheduling package, complete with all the attendant mapping, data and implementation costs. logixcentral, by contrast, costs just £300 per user per month, plus a one-off setup fee of £1,000 (this stays the same regardless of the number of users). That's under £4,000 for a single-user system in the first year.

The company recognises that larger users may continue to prefer hosting their own systems, so it is also offering an intranet version of the new system. In this case the user pays a more conventional one-off licence fee (currently £50,000 for up to ten users), and then deploys the system over its own internal network as required. But it gains the same flexibility to access the system on any computer at any time.

Palmer admits that setting up a routing and scheduling system remains a significant task with any type of deployment, but says LogiX has addressed this in the new system with a full range of electronic training resources, which include CD- and video-based presentations. "They talk users through the whole setup process," he says.

In use, the system imports locally-held data containing customer orders and available resources, optimises the schedules online at the server end, then delivers the results back in a range of report formats. Whilst these are presented by default as HTML pages, Palmer says they can also be downloaded directly into database or spreadsheet programs and saved for further local processing.

There is a provision for users to define 'public' areas of their system (available to all their own staff) and 'private' areas, where for instance confidential modelling exercises might be recorded.

Palmer reckons the change in philosophy could be a key to future sales of this kind of system. "In the past," he says, " it was the transport manager who would make the purchasing decision. Then five years ago responsibility moved up to the logistics director. Now it's increasingly the IT director who makes the decision."

Palmer reckons that nowadays people in this position are much more attuned to web-based applications, where the pay-as-you-go pricing model offers a clearer return on investment.

He readily admits that DPS had only limited success when it launched a budget-priced Express version of LogiX a few years ago. This was priced according to fleet size, and could cost as little as £10,000. "The trouble was that it cost us as much to sell and support as a full system. The sums simply didn't add up."

By contrast, he believes the online version will broaden the market sharply, providing a continuing revenue source with a much lower cost of sales. It also opens up new opportunities of sales abroad. "There's no need for us to set up sales offices in other countries," he says, adding: "We've already had significant interest from the Far East."

Since the company is insisting on payment by direct debit, there should be no risk that users might default on payment. "If there's a problem, we simply turn the system off."

DPS International have selected e-know.net to host and deliver our latest ASP offering of logixcentral. During the initial development and launch marketing of the new service, we had hosted logixcentral ourselves.

The decision to transfer the service to e-know.net was made in order to provide our customers with the specialist service needed for a complete solution with improved 24-hour support and security/backup facilities.

Using e-know.net to deliver the logixcentral technology allows us to provide an easy-to-use automated online vehicle scheduling system that requires minimal capital investment for our customers.

Paul Palmer, Chairman of DPS International said:

"When developing our new logixcentral.net service and looking for a partner to host the service, we needed to be comfortable that our partner not only understood the technical issues of ASP hosting but also the commercial aspects, as the ASP concept is new to our specialist business sector. We chose e-know.net because they were very responsive and flexible to our potentially changing needs as our customer base grows with SMEs."

DPS demonstrate logixcentral at The Logistics Event, UK

10 June 2005

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to talk to us at our stand and/or attend one of our presentations at The Logisics Event this week.

Visitors were able to see logixcentral in action on the stand, and Wayne Savill carried out a presentation and live demonstration of logixcentral in the presentation theatre on both days.

Plan on the web
The following article appears in this month's Logistics Europe magazine.

May 2005

It's time to web-enable your vehicle scheduling and transport planning. By Paul Palmer.

It's eight years since IBM launched its global e-business campaign. The impact on business has been astonishing and it's now difficult to imagine what commerce was like before companies used the Internet.

The impact has nowhere been greater than on logistics and supply chain management. Almost all applications central to fulfiling customers' needs have migrated to Internet applications. ERP, warehouse management, order processing, inventory planning, advanced logistics and supply chain planning, CRM and production planning are all now web-based. However, there is a surprising omission from this list - vehicle scheduling and transport planning.

Vehicle scheduling and routing has traditionally operated under inflexible constraints. The most common grumble heard from users is about the computer equivalent of criminal tagging; electronic devices that limit the computers the software can be running on. The use of these devices - known as dongles - sounds reasonable but is in fact inflexible unless all users are at the same location.

One transport consultant told me recently of a 3PL client who asked him to travel to Newcastle to collect one of these devices so he could use their system for planning. Halfway through the project - which was putting together resource requirements for a major commercial outsourcing bid - the Newcastle office required the dongle back; after returning it, he collected it again two days later. Not an efficient use of resources, and not very green either.

In computing terms this is the equivalent of steam age technology. Planners must be able to access software and work on any computer, anywhere, any time. This means Internet access from any computer with a user ID and password.

Transport operations do not run in normal office hours and requests for outsourcing quotes will not wait until someone collects the control equipment. Operationally, if there is a problem at the last minute, it has to be dealt with immediately - which may be at night or weekends when the transport manager is at home.

Typically 3PLs have bid teams for contracts based around the country. They must be able to access the software when they need it.

And, of course, so much planning is not now limited to one country. European cross-border transport is growing and will continue to do so. Web systems allow multi divisional, multi national co-operation.

Why has it taken the software industry so long to acknowledge this problem and deliver a web-based solution? One of the main reasons is that many companies, particularly SMEs, have shied away from scheduling software because they perceived it to be too expensive. Therefore, the market is not as big as it could have been. In addition, there is a technical problem as many scheduling solutions have an inbuilt legacy of DOS applications and are difficult to rebuild as web applications

Delivering a web-based solution is a cost-effective way of providing vehicle scheduling. DPS has shown this by developing a web-based system, based on the LogiX family of scheduling systems, called logixcentral. Not only does this meet the need for flexibility but it also provides an ASP service for companies, including those with small fleets. Paul Palmer is CEO of DPS International.

Press Release

Internet and intranet vehicle scheduling and routing system -
New system to be launched at CILT exhibition 'The Logistics Event'

5th May

UK company, DPS International, has now created and released the next generation of vehicle routing systems - an Internet- and intranet-based system. It eliminates the need for constraints such as dongles and brings computerised vehicle scheduling within the reach of most vehicle operators. This radical new offering is logixcentral (www.logixcentral.com).

Paul Palmer, Chairman of DPS International (www.dps-int.com) - a company he founded almost a quarter of a century ago to develop transport planning and operational systems - is convinced that logixcentral will appeal to companies who have shied away from routing systems in the past. It will also revolutionise the way the major 3PL companies use computerised vehicle scheduling tools.

DPS provides an ASP (Application Service Provider) service so that the smaller companies, including those with a small fleet, can now access logixcentral via the Internet and use the system on a pay-as-you-go basis. There is no need for an in-house vehicle scheduling system and no need for a licence. Because logixcentral is based on the DPS long-established, market-leading LogiX family of vehicle routing and scheduling products, the customer can expect a rapid return on investment.

The same product used in a different way can also solve the issues raised by large companies with a need for multiple copies. 3PLs with many accounts to manage nationally and even internationally can use logixcentral on their corporate intranet. The system can then be accessed on any computer, anywhere. This includes home-use, from a client's desktop or even while on the road by using a wireless hot-spot or a mobile connect 3G/GPRS data card.

The company provides the full range of options for vehicle scheduling and routing. The choice includes a range of applications for planning and vehicle scheduling, including mapping software for most major industrial countries. The solutions are available as an in-house licence, an ASP pay-as-you-go offering, a corporate intranet version and as a service through trade federations.

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Come and visit us at The Logistics Event (CILT) at the NEC, on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th June. You will be able to see logixcentral in action at our stand, B125 (next to the central café area).

Attend one of our presentations including a live demonstration in Theatre 2:

• Tuesday 7th June at 10.45
• Wednesday 8th June at 10.00

To register your interest in attending a presentation, please click here.

Waste Per Se benefit from using logixcentral

Managing Director, Ian Bryan, commented:

"We are delighted to have secured access to this innovative product which combines proven performance and a high level of functionality with a low entry cost per site. Since acquiring logixcentral we have already secured two multi-site accounts where the ability to confidently predict our base costs and service levels were key to securing agreement with new customers."

Read the full Press Release here (PDF).

23rd March 2005

Important EuroMap update for Plan LogiX, Route LogiX and Track LogiX

Euromap has been updated with the latest postcode and road changes for 2005. One important road change is the Millau Bridge in France. A major overhaul of postcodes in Turkey has resulted in 100% coverage. EuroMap now contains 100% coverage for about 40 countries, the rest (under 10) having between 50% and 100% coverage. EuroMap is the de facto standard for European distance calculations based on cities and postcodes. The update is available for download.

ILVA Møbler & Tæpper AS (Furniture, Denmark)

ILVA's use of Plan LogiX has developed over the years. Initially, Plan LogiX was used to plan furniture delivery, now ILVA uses Plan LogiX to completely plan the entire distribution process. The catalyst in this project is the change from ERP system to MOVEX, which enables Plan LogiX to receive more detailed information about each specific transport order. This makes it possible for ILVA to plan collections, deliveries and the return of goods. ILVA uses Plan LogiX for the total distribution planning of several depots in Denmark for distribution to Denmark and Sweden.

iConsulting, Sweden - iC LogiX toolkit

24th November 2004

SpedSoft AB is the Microsoft MapPoint service provider in Sweden and Microsoft's right hand for Microsoft MapPoint. MapPoint is the only program in the world that is fully integrated with all of Microsoft's products. SpedSoft AB makes use of MapPoint's development environment to enhance and visualise information on the map so that complex data is presented in a simple manner. SpedSoft is active in various segments and have a strong presence in the logistics sector. DPS and SpedSoft cooperate in projects related to DPS world leading position in route optimisation and vehicle scheduling, and SpedSoft's unique competence in MS MapPoint. DPS optimisation tools Plan LogiX and LogiX IE are supplied as integrated tools in the MapPoint environment. This allows MapPoint applications to contain the most advanced optimisation solutions available for users in transport, service and society paid transport.

Under the theme "Route LogiX 5 is like a walk on the Beach", DPS and Cargoware invited customers and potential customers to a presentation in Johannesburg.

The improved functionality and user-friendliness was demonstrated by Tracy Cheetham and welcomed by the audience.

One of Poland's leading transport companies is a new user of the advanced optimisation system Plan LogiX. DPS local partner Comp-Win is responsible of sales and support of DPS systems in Poland. A detailed road network is supplied, based on data from Imagis in Poland. This map is sold by DPS converted and adapted to DPS solutions.