Fleeting Woes

Al Futtaim and Home Centre are both big companies with big fleets of vehicles out and about on Dubai roads. But how do they manage these gigantics fleets?

Tom Nauwelaerts, Head of Logistics, Al Futtaim

Al Futtaim has a massive transport fleet which it uses for several purposes, from delivering furniture for IKEA to full truck loads of vehicles that run across Arabia, to project cargo with all the range of container loads and oversized heavy haulage car transport vehicles… the complete range. And managing such a gigantic fleet is no mean feat.

Having recently joined the company, Tom Nauwelaerts, Head of Al Futtaim Logistics, is in the thick of organising his fleet so as to have a semblance of order in the coming months. “A fleet of this size is challenging to manage on its own,” he explains. “Couple that with the speed of Al Futtaim’s growth. All of it rolled into one is a nightmare.”

Nauwelaerts faces numerous challenges. With the variety of vehicles, harmonisation
and management of equipment becomes a big deal as tractors, trailers and other vehicles need different parts and equipments for maintenance.

“Al Futtaim has a variety of businesses and they need different types of vehicles to service their clients,” says Nauwelaerts. “Today, the market rates are such that I have to ensure all vehicles are on the roads with maximum load and doing the most optimum run, that they have left the warehouse calculating the time they need to reach their destination so that no one has to spend any time idle on the roads.”

The challenge is to keep heavy vehicles running all the time they are allowed to run. Trips have to be planned like clockwork so if a road block starts just after noon, trucks should be at the right location with their cargo loaded by the time road blocks are removed. Time management is crucial. Nauwelaerts plans to use regular trucks with appropriate loads to run round the clock and the heavier vehicles to run at the specified times.

Nauwelaerts’ biggest cause of concern is the lack of an appropriate fleet management solution. “With the current volume of business, Microsoft Excel sheets cannot be our transport selecting tool of choice. Although there are smaller solutions running in different parts they are under performing, what we need is a solution that can harmonise all our corporate applications. Since we’ve already got SAP running in other parts of our business, it’s probably what we’re going to choose for our transport management, too.”

Uday Kiran, DGM, Home Centre

Home Centre From one store in 1995 to nine Home Centres across the UAE and 60 worldwide, the brand has expanded. “In the last four years, we have experienced massive growth,” says Uday Kiran, DGM, Home Centre. “The retail market has grown around 30 to 40 per cent each year and because of that we’ve had to expand out fleet to keep up. Today we have more than 120 vehicles.”

Satyaprakash Singh, Senior Manager Logistics, Home Centre, elaborates, “We have a jumbo-sized fleet covering all the emirates, from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah with approximately 360 deliveries per day. We cover around 500 to 600 kilometres.”

Singh and Kiran insist fleet expansion only happens as per the requirements of the business and a growth in the retail market.

On top of the 120 delivery vehicles, Home Centre also has separate 1.5 tonne pick ups for urgent deliveries. “We’re completely customer dependant, as they are our number one priority,” says Kiran. So, although normal deliveries are promised within three days, Home Centre says it sticks to a schedule of 24 hours from purchase, or later if required by the customer. “We not only have 1.5 tonne pick ups but we have them in varying sizes in order to fulfil requests or otherwise,” adds Kiran.

In order to maintain efficiency, Home Centre maintains feeder warehouses in different parts of the country. Each feeder warehouse has a few permanently- stationed delivery trucks to service nearby areas. “A feeder warehouse is basically a transaction point,” says Singh.

“It is a part of the warehouse and covers areas close to it. We have three feeders currently, one each in Sharjah, Abu Dhabi and Al Ain.”

Home Centre is currently using a fleet management solution from Atlas which is proving to be highly advantageous. Firstly, GPS helps them locate customer locations, saving time, fuel and gaining customer satisfaction as the vehicle reaches the correct spot in the minimum amount of time. “Our fleet management solution has proved to be a bridge between our employees and our customers,” says Kiran. “Safety of our employees is of utmost importance, with this solution we can track them, warn them of accidents and our Customer Care Centre can SMS them of road blocks ahead.”

The solution has helped manage another very important factor for Home Centre – fuel. “Drivers no longer have to go around in circles looking for houses, so we save fuel,” says Singh. “Also, through the GPS we’ve been able to cut down on overtime costs which we were incurring heavily earlier. Even a five per cent reduction in cost in these inflationary times is a good deal.”