Optimal route planning means efficiently scheduling stops along the route to provide customers with the best possible service. MEWA Textil-Service AG & Co. Management OHG from Wiesbaden wanted exactly that for a total of 47 locations. In order to be able to provide its customers with fresh textiles and workwear at all times, despite industry-specific delivery criteria, the company therefore sought reinforcement in the form of the TransIT route planning software from gts systems and consulting. Since the start of the project in 2022, Mewa has already been able to implement TransIT at most of its locations, thus sustainably improving route planning.
MEWA Textil-Service is a leading textile service provider for workwear, cleaning cloths, hygiene clothing and cleaning materials. The company's portfolio includes the delivery, collection and replacement of company textiles, a floor mat and mop service as well as hygienic certified laundering and care of clothing, cloths and mats. At the same time, the Mewa Group offers a service for industry-specific products such as protective car covers, oil collection mats, parts cleaners and washroom hygiene. With 47 international locations in 14 countries, Mewa must always keep its supply chain flexible for over 190,000 B2B customers. To further optimise the service, Mewa planned to automatically include company-specific parameters in the regular route planning. For this purpose, the textile service provider has recently started using the software of the tour planning experts gts systems and consulting from Aachen.
TransIT supports Mewa on the way to climate neutrality
In the cooperation, gts proved its experience in dealing with the textile industry right from the start. For textile service providers in particular, as well as laundries and the mat service, there are special requirements to be considered when planning tours. These include, among other things, different service rhythms or predetermined visiting days and opening hours of the customers. For Mewa, the planning of multi-day tours, different start-finish locations and other location-dependent factors are also crucial, which made manual tour planning virtually impossible. The TransIT tour planning software from gts meets this challenge with adaptive algorithms to generate the optimal route according to industry-specific parameters. A big plus for Mewa: thanks to the new route planning software, the company also saves fuel and thus reduces its ecological footprint. For the traditional company, this is another milestone on the way to climate-neutral distribution, in addition to the use of hydrogen trucks and cargo bikes. The next planned step in the project is the implementation of planning proposals with which Mewa will switch from strategic to operational planning with TransIT.
Project almost implemented in Germany
Through the cooperation, Mewa was able to improve the quality of its services in a very short time. Matthias Kun, Head of Fleet IT Systems and Fleet Management at Mewa, sums up: "gts already proved during the solution presentation with our data that it could implement all requirements of our tasks in the standard. This has led to us being able to make TransIT available to all German-speaking locations within a year since the project start at the beginning of 2022, and we are also already optimising the first international locations." In the long term, the textile service provider plans to introduce TransIT at all other locations and thus benefit from operational planning in the long term.
For more information on tour planning solutions for laundry and textile operations, please visit: https://gts-systems.com/branchen/waeschereien/
