Tarmac Rolls Out Podfather Route Planning to Cement Customer Service Improvements
Overview
Tarmac, a CRH company, is the UK's leading sustainable construction solutions and building materials business, as well as the UK's largest construction materials company. It employs around 7,000 people across a network of more than 350 sites across the UK and has 150 years of experience and heritage. Tarmac moves millions of tonnes of essential construction materials to local, regional, and national infrastructure projects every year utilizing the road and rail networks.
The business operates one of the largest HGV fleets in the UK, which travels more than 50 million miles on public highways annually. Transporting aggregates, asphalt, and ready-mixed concrete from Inverness to Southampton, Tarmac is rolling out Podfather logistics software to plan, route, and report on more than 30,000 deliveries a week.
750,000
paper sheets saved each month
10%
increase in laden mileage
30,000
deliveries a week
Challenge
Prior to the full software rollout, Tarmac faced operational variations across its vast network because logistics workflows were governed by human variables rather than standardized protocols. Managing highly specialized construction materials across regional lines limited back-office agility and restricted fleet optimization.
- Planning was highly dependent on personal preferences and geographical priorities rather than a rigid set of rules.
- The system was confined to a traditional "next day" planning model, which prevented the business from reacting to live, on-site changes.
- Logistics workflows lacked standardized consistency across regional borders, making it difficult to allocate routes fairly to third-party hauliers.
Solution
Tarmac expanded its long-term partnership with Podfather—which originally began with an ePOD rollout in 2017—by deploying Podfather's advanced nationwide route planning and optimisation tools. The platform establishes a centralized framework that automates route building based on precise system rules rather than individual regional habits.
The solution integrates real-time tracking with electronic Proof of Delivery (ePOD) features across their heavy goods vehicle fleet. Drivers utilize the system to digitally capture date, time, and location-stamped photographs and signatures on-site, allowing back-office teams to access critical transaction files instantly.
Results
The implementation has successfully transitioned Tarmac from legacy next-day planning to highly responsive, dynamic live planning. This change has freed up additional customer service resources, giving internal teams the necessary tools and capacity to build relationships and proactively troubleshoot issues for clients.
Operationally, the system has delivered substantial environmental and financial benefits by eliminating roughly three-quarters of a million sheets of paper every month. Furthermore, Tarmac can now provide third-party hauliers with clear evidence of fair route allocation while boosting their productivity by improving laden vs unladen mileage ratios by up to 10%, directly improving their bottom line and positively impacting Tarmac's OTIF KPI results.
Using Podfather we can plan to a set of rules, regardless of personal preferences or geographical priorities, which allows us to operate across borders, allocating routes fairly and consistently. This is allowing us to transition from purely next day planning to more live, dynamic planning, which in turn, means our team can be more responsive and reactive to our customers, building relationships and having the capacity and tools to troubleshoot if required.
Ben Garner
Logistics Director, Tarmac
