Case Study: Intergis Visual Control Room Paints A Profitable Picture For Pacoa

The local hardware and paint supply store still maintains its edge over the larger chain stores with customized and personal service. Ensuring that customer and contractor orders are received accurately and on time and being adequately stocked is imperative.

"PACOA caters to independently-owned paint, hardware and lumber dealers throughout the NY Tri-State area. Our supply chain technology is operated solely on getting the order out on time and catering to last minute requests," says Steve Geismar, president and CEO of Paint Applicator Corporation of America (PACOA) a leading wholesale paint, hardware, lumber, janitorial and building supplies distributor in the Northeast.

Since 1969, PACOA has grown steadily and now manages a fleet of 18 trucks that make as many as 15 deliveries each per day - adding up to more than 250 deliveries daily. Manually planning and routing this many deliveries took up to three hours for a single delivery shift, requiring the warehouse manager to juggle routing plans and mapping to organize shipments. Factoring in customer operating hours and loading dock schedules was also important in order to give customers an accurate delivery time, to maintain the route schedule and to minimize overtime. Clearly, an automated scheduling and routing solution was required - which would be less costly and more efficient than the existing manual process.