Meet Matthews: A Leader In The Memorialization Industry
Matthews Aurora Funeral Solutions manufactures and distributes premium memorialization products, including caskets, urns, signage and jewelry. They prioritize customer satisfaction through direct order fulfillment to cemeteries, funeral homes and monument dealers. “Our goal is to provide the highest quality product to our customers,” says Senior Vice President of Operations Scott Wright.
Families Count On Timely Delivery In Moments Of Hardship
In the sensitive funeral industry, Matthews maintains the highest sympathy for customer needs. “We’re helping funeral directors take a family from grieving to remembrance. We realize they have to make a lot of things happen in a very short period of time, and we’re here to help facilitate that,” says Director of Customer Service Chris Kent.
Matthews faces challenges similar to other delivery services, including fuel costs, equipment demands and fleet management. However, memorialization delivery presents other unique challenges. Time-sensitive orders create an on-demand environment with no room for missed deliveries. Given its nationwide presence, each Matthews facility requires a precise delivery strategy to address challenges in densely populated urban areas as well as on rural roads.
Inefficient Planning Wastes Miles And Man-Hours
Matthews emphasizes a strong team environment and provides staff with the tools they need for success. Prior to the implementation of route planning software, local staff with deep tribal knowledge of their regions were essential for operations like route planning. These route planners prioritized efficiency and cost-effectiveness, and yet an analyst hired by Matthews revealed that, even with all of the provided support, planning was inefficient and wasteful.
In addition to wasted man-hours spent on planning, routes were inefficient, resulting in higher fuel costs and shorter vehicle maintenance intervals. Matthews recognized the need to automate last mile processes like route planning, dispatch and analysis to operate efficiently and cost-effectively.
Matthews Builds A Unique Last Mile Strategy To Save Time, Reduce Miles
Matthews decided to implement route planning software and started the search with a lengthy checklist of feature requirements. Their priorities included automated route optimization, telematics integration and fleet import capabilities.
Additionally, Matthews needed a strategic partner to be actively involved during the implementation phase. The company went through a thorough evaluation process and ultimately chose to partner with Route4Me.
The Route4Me team worked from the start to create a unique business strategy tailored to Matthews’ business needs. Implementation of the route planning software took less than a day at each Matthews site. Brett Fox, Senior Director of Distribution Optimization at Matthews, worked directly with the on-site dispatchers to ensure they were getting the most from the software and was pleased with the platform’s ease of use.
Matthews Goes Beyond Route Planning To Achieve Business Optimization
During the pilot, Matthews’ targeted 4% savings in mileage and fuel, but the company nearly doubled its goal and achieved 7% savings. Additionally, Matthews’ planners reduced the time spent on weekly route planning from hours to minutes. Based on these initial success metrics, Matthews moved forward with rolling out automated last mile operations at all its locations.
Matthews realized that the strategic impact of route optimization is not the routing but the optimization. It’s about using the data from the optimization process to improve the bottom line and making decisions about facilities and staffing. Matthews found unexpected benefits from implementing the Route4Me platform, including the ability to forecast the equipment and staffing needs at each of their 66 sites.
“We knew we needed routing, but we didn’t know we needed optimization. We gained a solid understanding of our last mile operations and the steps we needed to take to continually improve our processes and boost our bottom line,” says Brett Fox.
