London, Brussels, 01 December 2016 - James Hall & Co Ltd, the SPAR distributor for the north of England has recently implemented the latest Proof of Delivery (POD) solution from Zetes on rugged PDAs, to improve communication with its retail stores.

Lack of visibility and communication

James Hall makes over 3,700 weekly multi-temp deliveries to 635 stores within the SPAR convenience store network across the North of England. They provide a range of fresh, sandwiches, cream cakes, bread, ambient, frozen and non-food items. Prior to investing in ZetesChronos, the latest proof of delivery solution from Zetes, deliveries were made into each store via paper based delivery notes. All stores were issued delivery windows across different temperature bands but due to a lack of electronic information, stores were unaware of exactly when deliveries would arrive at their stores.

Electronic POD for real-time visibility on deliveries

ZetesChronos has been fully integrated with James Hall’s Warehouse Management System (WMS), to enable real-time visibility and management of delivery fulfilment information. Stores can log-in to their internal webSPAR system to see real-time updates of deliveries and receive an alert message via email 15 minutes before a delivery arrives. This has reduced ETA ‘estimated arrival time’ phone calls to James Hall’s customer services department now the system has been in place for nearly 5 months. Using the PDAs also gives drivers more information such as the delivery risks and where to park at the store. The ZetesChronos solution is powered by the MCL Mobility Platform™, a cloud based platform which enables centralised management of mobile applications, devices and users.

“With retailers requesting more visibility on delivery times and better communication we were anxious to upgrade our paper-based system. We were looking for a future-proof solution that provides real-time visibility and control of our delivery and collection processes,” says Mark Clayden, Logistics Manager at James Hall & Co Ltd. “ We have worked together with Zetes to help resolve these problems as well as giving the drivers much more information on the road”.

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