The Transportation Practice of Enterprise Information Solutions Inc. (EIS) has announced results from the deployment of a new pickup dispatching computer system it developed for a regional LTL carrier.

Following six months in use in a production setting of one of its major LTL clients, EIS says the expected productivity improvements and other benefits used to justify the project have more than justified the carrier's ROI expectations.
The EIS computer application system was rolled out to the client's dispatchers -- who deal with a 350-unit fleet performing up to 2,200 pickups per day -- in June of 2002. Prior to this introduction, the carrier's dispatchers did not use any type of computer applications in performing their daily activities, relying instead on printed pickup requests, driver cards and trailer cards. Despite the lack of previous computer experience, however, the entire dispatching department made the transition from the manual process to the EIS computer system in a matter of two weeks.
EIS says key to this quick adoption rate is the unique user-interface design of this new dispatch solution that relies heavily on advanced graphical elements and the standard technique of "drag and drop."
On a single screen, a dispatcher can view all the pickups assigned to a specific geographic region with details including customer, ready and close times and expected volumes. They can also see the runs and equipment assigned to cover that region as well as the pickup requests already assigned to each run and their status.
Enterprise Information Solutions, founded in 1994, developed this application as a core component of its pre-existing EIS Transportation Solution Set built entirely in the Java programming language and the Swing components from the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). Beyond the innovative user interface, another critical technical component is full integration to a centralized database that takes place as individual assignments are dropped onto a run. This allows multiple dispatchers to view and work with the same sets of information without fear of duplicating or contradicting the actions of their co-workers.
For more information, visit www.eisolution.com.