Provide more peace of mind to your teams: interview with Sébastien Chalvet, Operations Manager at Sterne Group
- December 9, 2021
- 2 mins
Kardinal supports STERNE Group in the digitalization and optimization of its activity. Specialized in the organization of urgent and customized transport, STERNE Group optimizes the planning of urban deliveries of its subsidiary Novéa/STERNE City thanks to Kardinal’s real-time route optimization solution.
Sébastien Chalvet, Operations Manager for the group, answered our questions about the implementation of this project.
Kardinal: Hello Sébastien, can you tell us a bit more about you and Novéa/STERNE City?
Sébastien Chalvet: I am Sébastien Chalvet, Operations Manager at Novéa/STERNE City. I manage everything related to production and the staff in the field. In short, I am the link between the field and the customers.
Novéa/STERNE City is an urgent transport company. We mainly do urgent delivery by two-wheelers in the Ile-de-France region, using bicycles and motorcycles. We also have car services for small packages and larger vehicles for pallets. We manage regular shuttles and routes to customers who need them, but also more occasional parcel distributions during events. The Nanterre agency is not only in charge of the activity in Paris but also on the national territory.
K: What were the issues that led Novéa/STERNE City to start this project with Kardinal?
SC: To optimize our routes, we were previously using software that was not appropriate and that was causing us problems. For example, it had several drivers on the same street, which is not relevant because only one driver could have made both deliveries. It also did not always take into account the daily traffic flows in the Ile-de-France region. Compared to Kardinal’s software solution, the optimization was not as efficient. This is a disadvantage in the field because we lose resources.
Transportation is a business with many elements to take into account, such as meeting delivery deadlines. To be able to rely on the solutions offered by a software solution, the teams need to be able to really trust it. Because the old software suggested less consistent routes, we often took control of them. However, as soon as a human action is taken, the optimization degrades and is less efficient than if it had been done by the machine alone.
K: How do you use Kardinal's software solution and what is your first experience with it?
SC: My colleagues and I use the software every day, mostly at the end of the day to create the next day’s routes. The advantage of Kardinal is that the solution is constantly up-to-date, which allows us to see how the calculations are evolving. This is very useful because we can see how the software optimizes and adjust the number of employees as we go along. We also optimize specific distributions in the same way, even though they are usually planned in advance.
Thanks to Kardinal’s software solution, we create and optimize our daily routes depending on our customers’ requests. This allows us to know how many resources we will need each day. Regarding distributions, they can be frequent and involve a large number of packages to be delivered. Kardinal’s solution allows us to optimize both the daily routes and the distributions, which is very useful for us and easier to manage. Optimization is much better with Kardinal and it allows us to be faster and more efficient in our operations.
Thanks to the solution, we can now follow the exact route of the drivers very closely. Since traffic in Paris is complicated (streets become one-way and the next week they change again, bike lanes add a constraint, etc.), it is really important for us to be able to check that the routes are consistent before sending them out into the field. We like to use a comprehensive software package that updates regularly with the traffic conditions in the Paris area. I think that Kardinal’s software solution brings peace of mind and comfort to drivers. As we approach our busy period, I feel more confident thanks to the software.
