SAP TM has been always at the forefront of providing process intelligence with its various core modules working in sync. This combined with location intelligence results in a reduced cost of fulfillment through optimal routes, flexibility, less dry run, and better turnaround time. While engaging with SAP TM clients in India, the discussions normally lead to an interesting topic.
HERE or GOOGLE as GIS service provider?
While being part of SCMYUGA, our team got an opportunity to work with HERE for opening one of their major SAP accounts in India. The migration happened from Google maps to HERE. And what exactly was the decision behind this migration? Though there were a couple of major driving factors including PRICE which you can lookup in public domain , we will discuss some factors from SAP TM perspective.
The fleet range of our client included trucks of varying dimensions from 32ftMXL to 20FTSXL .There was a known limitation that Google maps doesn’t support truck routing and a lack of heavy vehicle profile where you can specify dimensional limitations (e.g. – length, width, height and weight) or load characteristics to which the client was surprisingly fine in the initial phases of implementation.
The below discussion would give you a fair idea on what could have possibly messed up the situation and lead to the migration to HERE. Its surprising to see that there are was no traction for this issue even with Google for a long time.
https://support.google.com/maps/thread/14284030?hl=en
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/80530792
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6673263060469317632
Now that you have read through the various issues imagine getting stuck in the congested streets or an underpass with height restrictions with a heavy duty vehicle due to the routing shown in driver app. You might even think its also the conscience of truck driver to select the appropriate route in such cases. But it’s acceptable to business in case of road blockage or emergency situations only and moreover deviates the drivers attention span.
So what solution does HERE offers to tackle this situation of height or dimensional restrictions?
The following example queries a route for a truck that is five meters high. The optimal route passes through a link forbidden for vehicles higher than four meters. The route for the given truck does not use this link.
You can read more about Enabling a truck route violating a restriction here:-
HERE offers the following location data enriching functionalities which can be subscribed as per requirements
- Time / Distance calculation including map
- Route calculation
- Traffic incidents
- Historical traffic-enabled routes
- Hazardous goods
- Custom routes
- Toll calculation
- Weather
- Geofencing
- Trip analysis
Location intelligence services are available through the entire SAP portfolio, pre-integrated to accelerate digital transformation. By enriching trusted processes with high-quality, enterprise-grade data, intelligent routing and rich attribution, SAP partnerships with service providers like HERE/GOOGLE is making location-aware solutions a reality. There are many other GIS providers which are strong region wise with better capabilities. Deeper evaluation will be covered in another blog.
Disclaimer:- SCMYUGA is not affiliated , associated in any manner with HERE maps nor vouches it as a complete fool proof GIS provider.
