Jacobs said his latest technological purchase is greatly benefiting his wholesale business and that he has the numbers to prove it.

In October, he said his was an early adopter of the Activant Dispatch and Delivery Solution (DDS), a software program originally designed for lumber yards to stage out deliveries.

"The one thing we have to do well every day is have the right parts in stock and get them to customers in a timely manner so they can get their cars out of the shop the same day," Jacobs said. "Activant Dispatch and Delivery System not only gets our drivers out the door faster, we're making 15 to 20 percent more deliveries than before.

"Typically, our dispatcher didn't begin thinking about a driver's next deliveries until he walked in from his route," he said. "A lot of valuable time elapsed before we'd get him back out for his next deliveries. Now our Dispatch and Delivery System informs us of each truck's location. Our dispatcher knows when a driver is 10 minutes out, and she has his next batch of deliveries ready for him when he gets here."

The DDS process begins when a parts order comes through on the printer, Jacobs said. A parts picker takes the ticket, scans the bar code on the ticket, and grabs the necessary parts. Once the parts are pulled, each part is scanned to show that the parts are ready to be delivered, he said.

From that point, Dispatcher Mary Johnson takes over, organizing batches and getting parts deliveries aligned with the proper driver, Jacobs said. She gives each driver a printed report informing them of the sequence to follow to complete the deliveries, he said.

Once a driver leaves with a delivery order, Jacobs said Johnson can track all the drivers' locations on her computer via the Activant GPS system on their Nextel two-way cell phones. Once a driver drops off a delivery at a shop, the computer will automatically show that the part has reached its destinations, he said.  

 
"This system has improved our turnaround time so significantly, it's equivalent to having an extra driver," Jacobs said.
Jacobs said his employees easily learned the new system and quickly became familiar with it. He said Johnson become comfortable with the program even though she had never used a computer.

"I was nervous at first and drug my feet, but now I love it, and I couldn't image working without it," Johnson said. Jacobs said 80 percent of his parts orders come through SpeedECat, a Web service that processes information and turns it into a format easily accepted by retailers and distributors. Through SpeedECat, Automotive Supply's customers are also able to track the progress of their parts orders, from order placement until the order is delivered to their door.

"Previously, a shop owner would call and ask where his fan belt was," he said. "That would send us on a hunt, attempting to follow a paper trail. Based on handwritten notes and an eraser board, we'd try to figure out which driver had been assigned the delivery. We'd find that driver's clipboard, which had hopefully been updated, and try to determine what time he left. Then we'd make our best guess about when he would probably reach the destination.

"That process could take 10 or 15 minutes before a return call, and we still could not provide specific information about delivery time."

With DDS, most of Jacob's customers can track the progress of their orders, and counter personnel are just a few clicks away from the information they need to update customers on their order delivery status.

"We can immediately tell a customer that the driver is 10 blocks from his shop and should be there within a few minutes," Jacobs said. "We can finish the call in seconds, making the customer happy and freeing up countermen to work on more valuable tasks."

To speed up delivery time, Jacobs said he has one driver responsible only for parts returns. That driver picks up returns at 20 shops each day, he said.

"We learned that when a delivery driver was stopping by a shop to drop off and part and then do returns, by the time he got to the end of his run, he was way behind time."

Jacobs said that in May, he equipped his employees with headsets so they have hands-free talking capabilities, along with direct numbers for management, counter personnel, and the dispatcher. He said it allows customers to call on the same counterperson every time, and also frees the counterpeople from taking unnecessary phone calls.