Vehicle Routing and Scheduling Software

Posted by alvina on January 30th, 2018

Today there exists a difference in the journey timing due to varying levels of traffic throughout the year leading to a disruption in the delivery timing and increased costs on an organization. This had led to the need for the development of a software that can find an optimum solution for the existing issues. The vehicle routing and scheduling software developed in this scenario plays a vital role in the production of optimized routes and schedules for transportation, which is beneficial to the logistics specialists and distribution planners who are required to route huge bunches of order to the warehouse on time. It operates by the generation of a set of routes that particularly suits the delivery requirements to enhance the operational efficiency.

1. The vehicle routing and scheduling software are mainly used for the following purposes:

• Prioritization of the profitable routes, customers, and orders.
• Enhancement of the usage of trucks, their drive time and the management of time-window for better customer service.
• Allocation of mobile resources as per the customer needs and the prospective business in the planned routes.
• Estimation of arrival times and tracking the performance.
• Management of the resources like trucks and routes in the best possible way. For example, minimizing the number of vehicles, labor.
• Optimization of the routes using various models like least cost, shortest route, the shortest distance between the stops.
• Enhancing the volume delivered per mile.
• Increasing the number of profitable orders.
• Ensuring customer satisfaction by the fulfillment of the service requirements.
• It also ensures a balanced workload between the drivers which results in a significant cut in the transportation costs.

2. The software must be selected based on the following factors:

• It must be transparent enough for the dispatchers for tracking the orders, drivers for easy navigation and end-customers for tracking their delivery on a real-time basis.
• It must provide options for live notification alert to the drivers, the dispatchers, the management as well as the end-customers.
• Ease of management of workflow and clear visualization of the processes on a real-time basis. Personalization of the dispatch module to suit to the customer is highly desirable.
• An active and real-time interaction between customers, drivers, and dispatchers to maintain transparency.
• Uninterrupted operation of drivers by automation of the entire process to get real-time updates regarding the delivery status.
• Vehicle route optimization through identification and customization of efficient allotments like ad-hoc stops and re-sequencing.
• Organized sorting process at the warehouse to ensure that the drivers are with the right inventory.
• Identification of patterns in the data and creation of customized rules to ensure that the delivery schedules are in line with optimum utilization.
• Security and privacy of the huge amount of data.
• System scalability to match the increasing or reduced requirements.
• Customization of the platform to match the customers' needs.
• Safety of drivers while they are on road.

The vehicle routing and schedulingsoftware helps in saving time by successful accomplishment of managing the last-minute orders, optimization of the internal resources, simplification of the process of planning and enhancement of the process of distribution of goods. It significantly improves the accomplishment of orders besides decreasing the cost through the use of shortest route, minimum fuel consumption and improved usage of the fleet.