The world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, Scholastic, distributes nationally to school-based book clubs and fairs, retail stores, schools, libraries, and television networks. The company, founded in 1920, reports a 2008 revenue of around £1.4 billion and employs 10,000 people worldwide. They have just selected the Direct Route vehicle scheduling software to automate the planning process within their extensive distribution network.

At Scholastic Book Fairs, schools take delivery of books on rolling display racks, giving children the opportunity to choose and read various publications. However, the busy timetable of fairs mean a complex and extensive distribution network for the Book Fairs transport team. A difficulty arises from the fact that most schools are located in residential areas which require routing schemes to consider more than just main roads. Another challenge is that drivers not only deliver bookcases, but also pick them up and provide support for the book fair events, requiring multiple visits to the destination.

Until recently, Scholastic planned its complex routing schedule through the efforts of 50 individuals pushing pins into maps. “As business grew, we developed the need for an automated process,” says Tony Smith, Scholastic Book Fairs’ director of transportation and facilities.

Scholastic’s pursuit of an automated solution led to the Direct Route routing system being selected from Appian Logistics. Designed to take advantage of new technology, operating systems, and hardware advancements, Direct Route optimises routes based on customer locations and types, volume and time requirements, road network distances, vehicle costs and capabilities, customer time windows, work-time parameters, and dispatch parameters.

The automation Direct Route introduced has already allowed Scholastic to reduce the number of people working on routing from 50 to 12, eliminating the inevitable variances of so many people planning routes. It also helped consolidate the process so all field workers can access information from a central source. “I can now see how a particular branch ran its routes last week; the old, decentralised system prevented us from pulling all that information together,” Smith says.

The sole UK distributor for Direct Route is AutoLogic Systems who supply specialist supply chain software to companies such as Boots, Dematic, Premier Foods and Dyson.