Why use a Delivery Route Planning Software?
Descartes' delivery route planning software is ideal for route optimisation for multiple drops and will improve your delivery planning and operational efficiency.
Delivery route planning software will;
- Enable distribution-intensive companies to achieve the highest levels of customer service
- Control and minimise their transportation costs
- Transform the delivery service from a costly requirement into a customer service asset.
Planning delivery routes with multiple drops is only as good as the route optimisation engine and the Descartes route optimisation works with highly sophisticated mathematical algorithms along with the latest most up-to-date street and traffic data. Not all route planning and optimisation software tools are the same nor do they solve the same problems.
Descartes delivery route planning software will allow you to:
- Smooth delivery demand across different days and geographies
- Use your fleet across multiple depots depending upon demand
- Utilise constant and continuous optimisation to select the best and most profitable delivery day for all your deliveries
- Allow you to include collections or depot pick-ups/transfers as part of the delivery route
The number of daily delivery slots can be varied depending upon geography, fleet capacity and available vehicles, while also allowing the customer to select their own and best delivery dates and times at the point of sale.
You will also be able to transition to shorter and more accurate delivery times with confidence.
Upgrade your delivery planning and deliver without boundaries.
What to consider when choosing a Delivery Route Planning Software
You should first look for an optimisation tool that is designed to drive delivery 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.
Read our blog on six things to look for when choosing a Route Optimisation Software.
Contact us to discover more about Descartes' Delivery Route Planning Software
These are all the other factors to consider when choosing 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?
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 selectedautomatically or manually by the load planner or offered to the customer for self-selection online 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?
This is a simple click, drag and drop in Descartes' delivery route planning system, automatically updating the route information.
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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 pick-ups and drop-offs in order with the 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, to create optimal route density while still considering customer, vehicle, and driver requirements? Or only calculate a batch with a fixed number of delivery slots for the next day? Descartes' solution can do either.
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 most complex delivery route scheduling problems.
- Drive efficiency
- Reduce costs
- Improves productivity
- Enhance the customer experience
Read more about Multiple Drop Route Planning
Delivery Density
Ensuring that each delivery route has adequate density of deliveries and optimising the route travelled is vitally important, but so is creating an even workload across your pool of drivers. These functions are carried out by Descartes' advanced route optimisation engine.
A company’s ability to continuously create reliable multiple drop delivery routes using fewer vehicles, miles and drivers makes them more flexible, able to cope with changes in demand and minimise costs.
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 solutions for over three decades. We have been innovating and refining our routing capabilities to address a myriad of routing problems in diverse industries and continue to invest in new and innovative technologies such as machine learning.
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.
Features & Benefits
Continuous background optimisation
Achieve more efficient route plans for your fleet than traditional batch-based optimisation techniques and provide costed delivery options at the point of sale in seconds.
High quality traffic data
Accurate route times are possible using road speeds that are based upon the day, the time of day, the route taken and even the direction of travel, giving you confidence in the route schedule and your customers delivery times.
Integration with other Descartes fleet management and optimisation solutions
Descartes Route Planning Solutions have been designed to work with Descartes Mobile™ Applications, Transportation Management and Compliance Management solutions to provide a one-stop-shop for optimising in-house fleets and third party transport operations.
Wide range of solutions for all fleet operations
Descartes routing solutions can accommodate all fleet sizes and operations, from fixed static routes delivering for retailers to dynamic home delivery operations. Get more out of your fleet assets and reduce the cost of transport operations.
Cloud-based software
Our fleet route scheduling Software is available over the internet wherever you have a connection, providing team access to our solution, working from any location at any time.
Customer Successes
“Descartes Reservations™ and Route Planner™ solutions were integral to our strategy of offering a more extensive, but unified delivery service. The advanced optimisation capabilities and architecture of the Descartes solutions were critical, bringing new delivery service options to our customers in an economically feasible way. ”
Andrew Gay - Systems Manager
Fulfilment costs reduced £1.8m
Increased delivery productivity 35%
Delivery windows provided at POS
“Overnight our business was transformed. Our planning team and drivers love using Descartes.....Since introducing Descartes, Stop Start’s daily delivery volume has increased 50%. This rate of growth would not have been sustainable without digital planning tools. ”
Andrew Bayne, Managing Director
Daily planning time reduced 75%
Annual distribution costs saving £450k
Delivery capacity Increased 12%
“Investing in Descartes has been the game changer we expected it would be for our business. Descartes’ last mile delivery solution enabled us to win not just one, but two major contracts without increasing headcount.”
Matt Shields, Director, PBO Logistics
Delivery Capacity Increased 8x
Operations headcount No Increase
Saving on driver's hours 10%
“Working with Descartes, we’ve saved 13% on annual fuel costs, which equates to approximately 354,000 fewer miles driven.”
Lee Holmes, Transport and Logistics Director
Annual Fuel bill reduced 13%
Productivity improved 56%
Annual savings £2 million
“Introducing Descartes’ ePOD has translated into substantial daily savings of 16.5 staff hours as a result of more efficient customer delivery and invoice processes”
Rachael Adamson, Director – South-East
Daily time saving 16.5Hrs
Paper saved daily 1000 sheets
Site safety Improved
“In the past year since having the Descartes' system our jobs per route has improved by just short of 10%.”
Martin Alldritt - Planning & Optimisation Manager
Jobs per route has increased 9.9%
Average mileage between jobs reduced
Improved Customer Service
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