How Glasseo reduced intervention time by 12% thanks to Kardinal
Glasseo, a French specialist in the replacement of automotive glass at home, optimizes its routes thanks to Kardinal algorithms. Read the business case and find out how Glasseo went from manual and sectorial optimization to assisted and global optimization of its routes, allowing the development of its activity.
If you prefer to read the Glasseo case study summary in pdf, it is here 
About Glasseo
Glasseo is a French company specializing in the replacement of automotive glass. After its acquisition in 1976 by Luc Delbreil, who is still today the manager and the majority shareholder, the company developed on a large part of the French territory: Glasseo is now present in the regions: Hauts from France, Normandy, Brittany, Pays de la Loire, New Aquitaine, Occitanie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. In 1999, following the arrival on the market of a large competitor, whose unlimited means pre-empted all physical sites, Glasseo specializes in home interventions, to the point of making it its only profession.
We could never have followed in investments. On the other hand, at home, investments are low, it is a service profession, it is a profession where you fight by performance. Glasseo therefore specialized to be the best in this niche.
Today, Glasseo is 100 people, 12 million euros in turnover, 40,000 interventions per year, 60 workshop trucks and an increase of more than 20% this year.
State of the preliminary project
Manual and sector-based planning
Before the project, the meetings were set up by the operators of the telephone platform using a geographic sectoring of France. The principle was that each tour was operated in one and the same sector.
Strong constraints
The first constraint that applies to the construction of Glasseo tours is linked to the high demands that Glasseo places on itself in terms of quality of service to its customers: the time slot announced to the customer is very small (only half an hour) , it is well respected and is never modified (the customer is not called back to postpone the appointment).
The second constraint is structural: Glasseo is organized around 27 sites in France, resulting in tours that can be long, sometimes up to 400 km. These two constraints require a suitable optimization system.
The challenge
Luc Delbreil, manager and majority shareholder of Glasseo was confronted, as his company grew, with several problems:
Limits related to the use of a sectorization
Managing the move between two different sectors was very complicated for the technicians of the telephone platform. In addition, the addition of sites that are closer and closer to each other has created overlap zones, within which an intervention can be managed by either site. The management of these overlap areas therefore became strategic.
Expertise difficult to acquire for operators
The more the geographic sectors covered by Glasseo increased, the more difficult it was for its platform operators to master all the sectors and therefore to plan intervention meetings in the best possible way. The training of an operator of the appointment booking platform was therefore very long.
Response times deemed too long
Since its inception, Glasseo was renowned for its high level of performance concerning the respect of its customer commitments (to carry out the intervention within the period of 30 minutes fixed in advance, not to modify the time slot which had been planned) but failed to reduce its response times, deemed a little too long by its customers.
The solution
The choice of Kardinal
The project to introduce placement algorithms is an old project at Glasseo: I spent a lot of time personally looking for experts on the subject. This area is complex, with few resources. Luckily, I was put in contact with the Kardinal company and the presentation made by the team comforted me in the choice because there was both a powerful and adaptable algorithm and a technical team with very strong skills. . It corresponded to our DNA, DNA where we seek performance, flexibility and adaptability.
The two types of application of the solution at Glasseo
- in assistance to operators of the telephone platform
The solution proposed by Kardinal was gradually introduced to the operators of the Glasseo telephone platform. Today, everyone is using it as a proposition to identify the best niches when positioning appointments for interventions.
We have combined the expertise of Kardinal with the expertise of our operators. With a big gain: simplification for the operator. It is much easier for an operator to go and select the best slot if the slots are already pre-worked by an algorithm.
- for making an appointment online
Glasseo has developed a particularly innovative appointment system thanks to Kardinal algorithms: appointment scheduling can be done online, via the Glasseo website and automatically thanks to the integration of an algorithm that places appointments to optimize routes in real time.
The solution offered by Kardinal allows us not to go back on the appointments that have been chosen by online customers and positioned automatically.
The results
Training of new operators 12 times faster
The technology implemented today allows Glasseo to train a new operator in 15 days, compared to almost 6 months previously.
Reduction of intervention times by 12%
Glasseo has achieved the best average deadlines ever achieved by the company this year since this indicator was measured.
Collapse of care failure rate
Glasseo's ability to convert a call to an appointment has greatly developed thanks to its ability to offer faster support.
Better load distribution on the different sites
As soon as a site is overloaded, the algorithm fills the nearest site. In a transparent way for the operators, the load is distributed and fewer appointments are refused.
More interventions per tour in peak times
The optimization of the tours being better than before, the schedules are better filled when the demand is sufficient, which allows to carry out more interventions per tour.
Fewer kilometers traveled during periods of high activity
The optimization of routes carried out by Kardinal made it possible to observe a lower number of kilometers traveled during peak activity.
