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Route planning is among the essential elements in that performance . And while distributors inherently understand this , experience shows that fleet performance varies widely across distribution organisations – even for similar businesses using the same route planning solutions .

Yet , the performance advantage for top performing distributors is considerable , as they often require fewer people and vehicles , have shorter planning cycles and better productivity .

The key metrics that underscore this advantage include :

• 50 % reduction in the number of planners required

• Planners being able to plan 70 – 100 vehicles

• Minimal manual interventions , < 5 % of stops reworked

• Reduced time spent planning , < 1 hour resulting in later order cut-off times

• Ongoing fleet productivity improvement of 2 %– 5 % annually

So why the performance variation ? The simple answer : Poorer performers do not employ route planning best practices for measurement , processes , organisation or education . The telltale signs of a distributor not leveraging route planning best practices are :

• No performance baseline and no financial weighting of metrics

• Planners consider the planning process as more of an art instead of a science

• No visibility into the effectiveness of planners

• Decentralised planning and lack of planning process control

• Missing , inaccurate planning data

• Low planning expertise The good news , however , is that all these challenges have straightforward solutions . Here are key route planning best practices that turn poor fleet performers into top ones .

Determine a performance baseline

To address this , distributors should adopt a route planning solution that combines route execution and GPS-based mobile applications to establish a performance baseline . Then , focus on improvement .

Compare results by planner versus route optimiser

It is also wise to be aware that certain route planners will make subjective changes to the optimised plan based upon their tribal knowledge , which can negatively impact financial performance .

Remove planner variability

Inconsistencies in planner performance can have a substantial financial impact on your organisation .

Chris Jones EVP , Descartes Systems Group

Elevate planner performance with automation

All modern route planning solutions have

automation capabilities . The key is to effectively use these by taking planning best practices , embedding them into the solution and executing without human intervention .

Shift to centralised planning

Planners no longer have to be in the field to have the necessary local knowledge to make the best plans . In fact , the best planning occurs when it is centralised .

Remain focused on data quality

A clear indicator of route optimisation performance degradation over time is the neglect of maintenance of configuration and operational data .

Faster ROI by prioritising training

Route planning can often seem like rocket science and the knowledge that a planner has about route planning techniques and systems directly impacts plan performance , especially when so much effort is put into training the initial resources during implementation .

Route planning stands as the lynchpin of fleet performance , and the pathway to improving route planning performance is a logical set of steps that can be applied to any organisation , at any time . •

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