Improved (automated) Rate Manual – Ewals Cargo Care

 Overview

Company Description

Ewals Cargo Care is a fourth-generation family business. With 2400 employees in 17 countries, we are one of the European market leaders in the future-oriented logistics sector. Flat hierarchies, direct contacts, mutual support and a unique family culture characterize our way of working. Sales Engineering is a department within the Network Organization of Ewals Cargo Care, responsible for calculating the Network prices within the RFQ process.

Project Description

For the purpose of calculating sales prices (rates), for the Ewals Network, the Sales Engineering department uses a complex excel based rate manual. The complexity of the rate manual is a result of the number of items that influence the calculation of the rate plus the always changing dynamics of the network itself.

The idea is to, based on the current rate manual, improve the existing or build a new model/tool which can quickly calculate rates considering all the parameters important to the Network with less human effort than is the case at the moment (so more automated or fully automated). Full automation could facilitate to focus on requests and offers which will add significant value to the network.

As a second step we would than like to develop a predictive tool into the (new) rate calculation model/tool in order to give rate suggestions (or boundaries), based on historic offers and market rates, in order to predict and project a potential success ratio for the rate/outcome of the calculation.

Goals of the Project

Goal is to develop a model that can calculate the rates throughout the complete RFQ process on preferred routes with at least the same and if possible better quality and with no or minimal human intervention and a higher success rate.

The quality aspect considers:

• Customer requirements like lead-times, timeslots, free waiting times, etc.,
• Market knowledge about modalities & imbalances
• All related costs aspect
• Market dynamics (rate information)& imbalances
• The Ewals network (im)balance
• Current contracts and tariffs

Deliverables

• A model that calculates rates within a X% difference of the current human calculations (must have)
• A model that gives the % of winning a tender and the % win chance per lane (must have)
• A model that facilitates a broader range of options for calculations, taking in consideration at least extension to:
• Round trips and milk runs
• (Pre)selection for (multiple) modalities based on manual preference and/or customer requirements and lead time restrictions
• Automated distance and toll calculation based on ECC cost structure and strategy (KM driven in a certain country, not actual road taxes per trip)
• A model that will include a ‘light version’ of the calculation tool and methodology to facilitate quick spot quotations
• A model that will include at least a Development, Test and Production environment. In order to simultaneously maintain and improve the model and parameters, test new version and deploy it after (business) acceptance
• A model with improved performance (processing time (re)calculations) and with at least same level of flexibility compared to current excel based model/tool
• Extensive implementation, training and training material of the new model/tool for both end users and development team

Essential Student Knowledge

• Business administration
• Programming skills
• Financial and commercial knowledge
• Analytical skill
• Teamwork

 More information: escf@tue.nl