TNT Express made managers co-build optimisation models that saved €207 million.

In 2005 TNT Express ran its first operations research project, after senior managers were encouraged by a Tilburg professor's story on optimisation. The aim was business growth, but the tooling quietly became a way to cut cost and improve asset use across the network.

TNT formed communities of practice so network planners co-built each model: TRANS for line-haul routing and scheduling, SHORTREC for pickup-and-delivery routes, DELTA for supply-chain design. A GO Academy taught more than 200 managers the optimisation principles behind them.

The tools let operating units analyse performance, spot opportunities and fix them. Across 2008 to 2011 TNT realised more than €207 million in savings, ran 200 network-optimisation projects in 2011 alone, and avoided over 60 million km of mileage and 54 million kg of CO2.

Plant optimisers, then make managers co-build them

Network decisions were spread across many local managers, so a shared toolkit aligned them to one objective.

Co-building the model with the people who run the network meant the tool reflected real constraints.

A suite of optimisers covers routing, daily routes and supply-chain design, not just one slice.

Training managers to think in optimisation terms kept the gains after the consultants left.

Embedding OR works when the operators co-build the models; a package of optimisers plus training beats a single black-box tool.

The GO programme won the 2012 Edelman Award. FedEx acquired TNT in 2016 and folded the network into its own, but the programme stood as an example of how a carrier builds operations research into daily management, and the co-creation plus Academy model was widely copied.