Why use a Delivery Route Planning Software?
The Descartes delivery route planning software is ideal for route calculation of multiple drops and will help optimise and improve your planning
The delivery route planning software will;
- Enable service providers to achieve the highest levels of customer service
- Control and minimisetheir transportation costs as much as possible
- Transform your delivery service from a costly requirement into a customer service asset.
Delivery route planning for multiple drops is only as good as the route optimisation engine and the Descartes Route optimisation works with highly sophisticated mathematical algorithms and the latest most uptodate street and traffic data. Not all route planning and optimisation software tools are the same nor do they solve the same problems.
What to consider when choosing a Delivery Route Planning Software
You should first look for an optimisation tool that is designed to drive density, increase productivity and reduce miles, along with the number of vehicles, routes and deliveries that it can handle. The Descartes route optimisation engine can do all of these.
Contacts us to discover more about the Delivery Route Planning Software
Read our blog on six things to look for when choosing a Route optimisation Software.
These are all the other factors you should also consider when choosing a delivery route planning and route optimisation software for multiple drops:
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Sequencing - Multiple Stops
Will the delivery route planning software automatically place the deliveries and stops in an order that minimises distance while considering your customer's requirements?
The Descartes multiple stop route planning software considers all previous orders in the system and resources available before offering the optimal and possible delivery slots for any new orders. These can either be selected by the load planner or offered to the customer for self selection depending upon your sales solution.
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Swapping
Can the delivery route planning software easily move stops between routes, vehicles or days whilst still considering customer, vehicle and driver requirements?
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Pick-up and Drop-off
When an order is associated with two locations (picking up a product from one location and delivering it to another), will the route planning software arrange the pick-ups and drop-offs with vehicle capacity, customer requirements and driver efficiency in mind?
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Best Day Selection
Does the delivery planning software select the best day, route and sequence of deliveries within the schedule, in order to create optimal route density while still considering customer, vehicle, and driver requirements? Or only calculate a batch for the next day? The Descartes solution can do either.
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Same Day Dispatch
Can the delivery routing software cope with, and assign, new or emergency orders to routes that are already being executed and do so after considering what has already been completed of that route’s deliveries?
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Continuous Optimisation
The Descartes route optimisation engine continues to run from the moment it receives the first order to the last, this drives maximum efficiency, reduces time for delivery routes to be calculated and enables you to extend the cut-off time for new orders.
Continuous dynamic route optimisation can use all of these concepts and provides all the benefits listed above.
INFOGRAPHIC: Continuous v. Batch optimisation
An optimal multiple stop delivery route planning software, such as Descartes', will leverage your customers’ business priorities and one or more of the concepts above to solve the simplest to the most complex routing scheduling problems.
- Drive efficiency
- Reduce costs
- Improves productivity
- Enhance the customer experience
Delivery Density
Ensuring that each delivery route has adequate density of deliveries and optimising the route traveled is vitally important, this function is carried out by Descartes advanced Route Optimisation Engine.
A company’s ability to continuously create reliable multiple drop delivery routes using fewer trucks, miles and drivers makes them more flexible, able to cope with changes in demand and keep costs low.
Why use Descartes Delivery Route Planning Software?
It takes industry knowledge, innovation and understanding of a customer’s challenges combined with great technology to deliver results. Descartes has been providing multiple drop route planning optimisation tools since 1985. We have been innovating and refining our routing capabilities to address a myriad of routing problems in diverse industries.
Our experience and attention to innovation has enabled us to provide solutions that address territory and strategic planning problems, dynamic route planning, same-day routing, multi-drop route planning as well as point-of-sale/appointment scheduling and much, much more.
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Example - Daily Route & Load Planning
As each new order is placed so the Descartes routing solution re-optimises the possible routes and vehicles in real-time, allocating resources in order to maximise a company’s operating efficiencies. This continual optimisation, as orders are being taken, enables fleets to be fully utilised and only those delivery slots that are ideal for a delivery route and that can be fulfilled with current resources, are offered, thus maintaining overall customer service objectives. Any over commitment is identified early, enabling the company time to hire in additional resources or reallocate deliveries.
Orders are visualised on a map within the software which considers the street level network and other parameters in order to build the delivery routes automatically. Dispatchers then still have full control to manage exceptions with easy drag and drop moves.
Companies that have moved from 'manual route construction' to 'exception management' with a Descartes routing solution find that their route planning time can be often be reduced to just a fraction of the time previously taken.
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