BAKO North Western rolls out Podfather across its UK operation

BAKO’s multi-temperature vehicles deliver to thousands of customers nationally and BAKO needed a system that could rise to the planning challenges presented by its high-volume operation.  Having been impressed by the Podfather system’s breadth of functionality, flexibility and ease of integration, BAKO were able to roll out delivery tracking, vehicle check, customer notification and electronic proof of delivery technology in a matter of weeks.  Paper tickets are now a thing of the past and the increased visibility and efficiency that Podfather brings has resulted in cost savings, efficiency improvements and improved customer service. 

“The introduction of Podfather completely changed the way we work,” comments Richard Hodson, IT Manager at Bako North Western (Group) Limited. “We used to manage everything using paper tickets which, with thousands of products and customers, was a hugely time-intensive task.  We have now eradicated paper tickets from two of our three locations and look forward to doing this again at our third and final site early next year.”

BAKO North Western (Group) processes orders at each of its locations and with Podfather seamlessly integrated into its ERP solution, job information automatically flows between the two systems. Podfather’s cloud-based back office system pushes job information out to an app on each driver’s smartphone device. At the start of each shift, drivers log all vehicle check information via the Podfather app before heading out on the road. Each customer receives a full list of delivery items.  Substituted or unavailable items are clearly highlighted for the customer to see.

“With Podfather our customers have so much more visibility of their orders. In the past, if there was a substitute or out-of-stock item our customer would not know until our driver arrived on site, which was not ideal”, adds Hodson. “Now, with Podfather, we can tell customers exactly what they will be receiving in their delivery, and if items are rejected or returned our drivers can log this using the Podfather App while on-site with the customer, giving us complete real-time visibility of what’s going on out on the road.”

Real-time visibility across the operation has also helped to streamline and speed up invoicing processes.

“We have built Podfather to be a system capable of tackling the big challenges that distribution operators, such as BAKO, have to face on a daily basis including high volumes and item substitutions,” comments Colin McCreadie, Managing Director at Podfather. “To see the BAKO operation roll out so quickly, and with such great results, is a testament to our commitment to developing and delivering an easy-to-use software solution with robust integration capability, that brings real business benefits to today’s fleet operators.”