To reach the final customer from the production level, Heineken uses logistics services from the largest beverage distributors nationwide, such as Bere Băuturi București, Kara Distribution, Nitela, SaLF, Amigo&Intercost, FarelImpex, Prosonic, West Beverages and others.

In line with Heineken’s global policy of providing quality services, Heineken Romania maintains a close relationship with its distributors and invests in both the development of the distribution network and the

development of the operating capacity of its distributors.

The big challenge in this segment was the search for some innovative technological solutions that applied to each distributor would improve the distribution process and help the distributor to deliver better, faster and cheaper, resulting in an increase in the capacity and quality of the distribution, and finally helping Heineken by increasing the consumption and the satisfaction of the final customer.

In a 12-month period, FleetMaster has been implemented within 8 of the leading distributors nationwide, totaling about 500 vehicles and covering all counties of the country.

Although each distributor has its own system of work, its own fleets with unique characteristics and a distinct way of working, the implementation of FleetMaster has been successful, ensuring the connection with ERP, CRM, WMS and SFA systems as well as equipping vehicles with GPS monitoring equipment and tablets for bidirectional communication.

Orders are automatically taken from the customer’s ERP system, are planned for loading and routed optimally in FleetMaster, the final routes being returned to the ERP system for preparing transport documents and transmitted in real time to drivers on tablets for door-to-door navigation.

The delivery of orders is monitored in the live system and reported in the system compared to the established route, thus having a real control of the deliveries with status reported by both the GPS system and the delivery agent.

After a thorough selection, Heineken chose the FleetMaster solution as the most suitable solution and the only one that can cope with the distribution challenges.

The FleetMaster solution, in its Enterprise version, together with the modules Route Optimization, Dispatch, Communication, Business Intelligence and ERP/API Integration, forms a TMS (Transport Management System) + FMS (Fleet Management System) complete system and represents the supreme tool in managing the distribution activity.

With its own algorithms for optimizing the allocation of orders on cars, loading machines and optimal routing (taking into account all possible parameters: traffic, delivery intervals, unloading time, vehicle characteristics, etc.), and with the communication system with drivers, dispatching and fleet management, FleetMaster brings maximum cost reduction, streamlines the entire distribution process and ensures total control over the activity.

According to the expectations and simulations carried out previously, for each of the distributors there was a substantial improvement of the delivery service and a significant reduction of costs.

The main results, estimated and obtained after implementing the FleetMaster project are as follows:
• Reducing the number of km traveled, and implicitly the cost of fuel, up to 30%;
• Reducing the number of vehicles used up to 25%;
• Reducing the planning time and staff involved with 80%;

• Reduction of time for billing and issuing transport documents by up to 50%;
• Reducing the rate of orders not delivered due to addresses not found with 100%;
• Align driver salaries at a basic level, without separation based on the subjectivity of knowing a delivery area;
• Informing customers about the estimated delivery time;
• Transparency and informing at management level on all costs and achievement of proposed KPIs: cost/km and cost/kg as low as possible.