Rabaud moves up a gear with PTV OptiFlow!

Since the beginning of March, Rabaud, a specialist in the design, manufacture, and marketing of agricultural machinery, has been using PTV OptiFlow SaaS software from PTV Logistics. Already a user of PTV Map&Guide for route planning, the family business is taking a new step forward by automating and optimizing its delivery route planning thanks to the computing power of the digital platform.

Founded in 1980 by Claude Rabaud, an ingenious farmer from the Vendée region, and now run by his two sons, Éric and Jérôme Rabaud, the company is a true French success story. With a turnover of €38.5 million and 220 employees, it began its business by inventing its first log splitter. Since then, it has developed a comprehensive catalog of high-value-added industrial machines, which it sells to professionals in the timber industry, construction, forestry, agriculture, and winemaking, as well as green spaces. The company controls the entire manufacturing process for its equipment: from design to manufacturing, including transport from its 22,100 m² factory in Sainte-Cécile, where its headquarters are located, to a network of 2,000 dealers across France.

To improve the efficiency of its machine deliveries, Rabaud migrated to PTV OptiFlow from PTV Logistics in March. Already a user of the PTV Map&Guide route planning solution, the interface of this new route optimization solution met the new objectives of the information systems department. "PTV Map&Guide suited us perfectly, but the evolution of our constraints pushed us to equip ourselves with a more dynamic solution, allowing us to update our mapping, to evolve our IT infrastructure while optimizing the planning of our weekly delivery routes by integrating data from our ERP " explains Pascal Bourasseau, head of information systems at Rabaud for over 20 years.

Better management of constraints

From its ERP, published by Silog, Rabaud injects delivery orders into PTV OptiFlow, which automatically organizes all the week's rounds in a single calculation in a few seconds . No manual entry is necessary between the company's ERP and the PTV Logistics tool, which allows for operational efficiency gains and eliminates forgotten orders or errors related to manual entries. In addition to the distances to be covered, the tool allows Rabaud to take into account more constraints, such as different transit times depending on the services to be performed and/or the equipment involved, while offering planners the flexibility to capitalize on their field experience. The solution also distinguishes between salaried drivers and transport service providers, allowing the latter to complete their rounds directly with the last customer delivered. They can independently and instantly adjust the delivery schedule at any time, for example by adding delivery points. Another major advantage highlighted by the manager: the optimization and fair distribution of the load of the vehicles owned by the company. by the manufacturer. "The tool allows us to automatically distribute deliveries across different rounds, taking into account the overall turnover ," explains Pascal Bourasseau. In terms of usability, PTV OptiFlow offers a colorful display that allows us to distinguish between delivery types: those made to resellers, but also during machine collections from customers or machine demonstration sessions.

A quick and efficient transition

No structural changes to Rabaud's information system were necessary to interface PTV OptiFlow with the company's management software. It only took a month and a half to switch from PTV Map&Guide to PTV OptiFlow. "At Rabaud, we have very high standards. After studying the optimization solutions on the market, PTV OptiFlow was the only one that fully met our needs and our organization, in terms of flexibility, automation, and integration. We are truly satisfied with the solution," says Pascal Bourasseau, who plans to study the PTV Axylog real-time transport visibility software solution in the future, in order to identify new optimization levers for the downstream stages of the delivery process.