Unitrans expands the use of the logistics software CarLo in Africa

Since March of 2020, the South African company Unitrans has been successfully using the transport management system CarLo. After the first go-live in Namibia, the premium software CarLo has been implemented at the branches in Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and South Africa. Now, Unitrans goes live with another business field in Malawi.

Unitrans Africa is a transport and logistics company which has its headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa. Since 1982, the company has specialised in a wide range of transports. Among others, Unitrans offers solutions in the areas of chemicals, foodstuffs, crude oil, mining, agriculture and in the rail sector.

After the logistics software CarLo was implemented in the road transport sector of the South African company, the go-live for the agriculture business field was carried out in May of 2021.

The main task of this business division is the complex sugar cane harvest. On large plantations, the sugar cane is cut by hand and then, using loaders, loaded onto trucks with up to four trailers. In order to be able to harvest as much valuable sugar cane as possible, the fields are set on fire before the actual harvest to eliminate the leaves, which allows for faster harvesting and less material to be transported on the trucks, as well as improving the productivity of the sugar mills. Afterwards, harvest workers can cut the sugar cane as close to the ground as possible and thus avoid larger crop residues.

„For Unitrans, it is of utmost importance that CarLo corresponds to the requirements of agricultural enterprises and that CarLo facilitates the transition from manual work processes to digitalisation,“ says Fabian Heidl, CEO International of Soloplan GmbH.

By using CarLo, Unitrans is now able to manage the complex and time-critical just-in-time planning for supplying the refinery with sugar cane.

The transport activities on the plantations are processed entirely within CarLo. To be able to track over 45 trucks in real time and receive feedback from the individual drivers, the CarLo add-on inTOUCH has also been implemented and every truck has been equipped with a tablet. With this tablet, all drivers can communicate with the planning department, look at tours or register possible delays. Thus, the telematics add-on CarLo inTOUCH allows for completely paper-free communication between drivers and the planning department.

Using real-time tracking of the entire process chain, Unitrans is able to accurately predict the arrival times of the trucks at the refinery and thus proactively manage and keep the production plans of the customers.

Furthermore, using the logistics software CarLo, Unitrans can exactly predict the sugar cane deliveries for the next hours, plan the required resources and thus achieve an optimal fleet utilisation.

Apart from the specific requirements regarding the handling of the sugar cane harvest, it was also important for Unitrans that all their processes can be managed centrally in a single system. That is no problem for the TMS CarLo with its add-ons. Additionally, a connection to, for example, the financial accounting system or other systems, is also possible via an interface.

Due to the numerous reports and statistics that are continuously created automatically in CarLo, you can transmit management reports regularly, easily and paperless. The monitoring of all relevant KPIs is also possible–in a smooth and user-friendly way–thanks to the logistics software CarLo.

Intensive key user training leads to a quick success in Malawi:

Thanks to the professional cooperation of the Soloplan project management department and the persons responsible at Unitrans, the implementation of CarLo at the branch in Malawi quickly showed success. Unitrans‘ extensive industry expertise, built up over many years, was incorporated into the configuration of the workflows in CarLo, enabling numerous processes to be digitized and accelerated. Following comprehensive key user training and a requirement-gathering workshop, the transport management system CarLo could be taken live at Unitrans Malawi within a short period.

Due to the intuitive user interface and the customer-specific adjustments, the software could be implemented without problems and without noticeably limiting the ongoing day-to-day business–so much so that a parallel rollout could take place for Unitrans Eswatini at the same time.

Further adjustments in CarLo are to simplify the processes of Unitrans in the future:

In the next months, further adjustments will be made to CarLo in order to simplify the processes in the transport processing and thus allow for even more efficient working. For example, weighbridge integration is planned, and integration with fuel management systems is well underway, enabling the monitoring of fuel consumption and costs. In the future, CarLo is to be used at all other agricultural branches of Unitrans, which can then simplify and digitise processes in the daily business.

You too can benefit from more than 25 years of experience in the business, combined with best practices accrued from our customers in the forwarding and transport industry, which continually contribute to the development of our software solution. The product family of the logistics software CarLo also includes: CarLo inAIR&SEA for air and sea freight, CarLo inHUB for smooth processing in your transshipment warehouses, and many more add-ons from the transport sector.

Would you like to learn more about the logistics software CarLo and its numerous add-ons?

Then feel free to arrange an individual presentation appointment today and contact us via e-mail at sales@soloplan.com, by phone at +49 831 57407 300 or using our LIVE chat on our website.