Is Your Delivery Software Intelligent?

As someone who has been involved in technology my entire career, my curiosity is always drawn to new ideas, concepts, and technology. Over the last couple of years, I keep hearing more about the “Internet of Things” (IoT) and how it is impacting today’s technology solutions. I thought I would use this writing to explore how it is now offering new frontiers for software developers to enhance their products through utilization of IOT.

For those of you that are not that familiar with IOT, Wikipedia offers a decent explanation. IoT is described as a network of physical objects—“things”—that are embedded with sensors, software, and other technologies for the purpose of connecting and exchanging data with other devices and systems over the Internet. As the concept has evolved, other technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), real time analytics, embedded sensors, and big data mining, have become building blocks to build a new generation of solutions.

According to Fortune Business Insights, “The global IoT market size stood at 250.72 billion USD in 2019 and is projected to reach 1.4 trillion USD by 2027”. The impact has crossed a broad spectrum of industries with a few examples being consumer products, medical, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, and communication.

When NetScore first started development of their Delivery Routing solution, they built in the standard features that allowed you to organize customer orders into delivery routes. The early edition included features such as:

  • Manual Route Planning
  • Signature capture
  • Viewing a map of the route plan
  • Re-assigning routes
  • Perform PO pickups

As the solution was deployed through the customer base, a common request was the ability to view the location of their trucks in real time. As the development team started exploring solutions, they realized that they could truly take the solution to the next level by incorporating IoT solutions as part of the offering. Leveraging the technology would solve tracking trucks in real time, but also extend to monitoring statistics regarding the vehicle, driver, traffic, and even sensors on the vehicle. The commitment to adding the capability to manage this type of information required revising the infrastructure of the product. While this was not a simple task, the value of enhancing the solution opened broad areas where the application could be expanded.

NetScore decided to partner with Particle who specializes in building sensors that can be leveraged by other developers to bring IoT to their solutions. They produce sensors for a wide variety of applications but offered a product line designed for the fleet management and transportation industry. Figure One shows the relationship of the Particle solution and its integration to NetScore.

Figure Two shows the revised data flow representing how information moves through the Particle IO cloud to the NetScore cloud solution. Additionally, NetScore has included the ability to manage and analyze the data through incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytic tools.

Delivery operations are both capital and cost intensive to maintain, so companies are always looking for means to lower their costs and increase efficiency. Optimizing routes using real time traffic information can save fuel, driver time, and help maintain delivery schedules. Sensors that monitor temperature for refrigerated trucks can warn of a possible refrigeration failure that could jeopardize a full load of product. Monitoring vehicle speeds can help management determine whether trucks are being driven safely and help reduce accidents.

The value of the information being gathered increases over time as you now can use AI and Data Analytic tools to analyze the data. This will help spot trends, allow for predictive action, and better manage your assets. You are probably thinking about where all this data can be maintained since storage can be expensive. NetScore is integrating with Google Cloud Storage to provide an affordable option for storing your data. The integration will allow for seamless management of your data with the full ability to leverage your Data Analytics and reporting tools.

As I mentioned early on, making incremental improvements to how you plan routes, deploy your delivery assets and care for your delivery fleet, will add up over time. Deploying a solution that can leverage IoT technology, AI, and Data Analytics, will result in a quick return on investment. It will also increase your customer satisfaction and build a reputation for delivering your product efficiently and effectively. For more information on how NetScore is leveraging IoT in their Delivery Routing solution, please reach out to NetScore Account Executive.

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Squeezing Cost Out of Your Delivery Operation

 

Running an effective delivery operation is a challenge. Costs associated with delivery services can get out of hand if not monitored on a continuous basis. According to Insider, last mile delivery amounts to 53% of shipping costs. If you have ever tracked a package and it said “out for delivery” this is the area we are focusing on.

Many distributors are electing to carry out this process by adding their own delivery service to their operations. Customer expectations are high as companies like Amazon have established services such as Amazon Prime. This type of delivery service can involve hundreds of stops with delivery of small amounts of product. This scenario compounds the need for efficiency as now a broad range of efficiency-sapping factors are at play. Understanding those factors and ability to monitor them provides a key element in controlling these costs.

Delivery fees can contribute to a company’s revenue stream and cover costs of the delivery service. It is important to understand the costs to arrive estimate delivery fees. A solution like NetScore’s Delivery Routing application gives companies the ability to track costs over time. This level of information provides the ability to estimate delivery fees.

Driver time is a significant cost and must be managed as it controls how many deliveries go out in a shift. Route planning tool accounts for:

  • Transit time from one stop to the next
  • Unloading product
  • Loading returns
  • Acquire proof of delivery
  • Communicating with the next stop

The above factors can all affect delivery time. Time stamps for each delivery can, over time provide an estimate of time needed to account for these factors. NetScore’s Delivery Routing solution timestamps each delivery stop and provides real time driver locations.

Fuel is a variable cost that can improve by use of intelligent routing solutions. The solution determines the most efficient route based on the planned stops among other factors. Integrations to solutions like Google Maps can determine potential traffic snags, road closers, and accidents that can make a route inefficient.

Truck maintenance is critical to maintaining an efficient delivery operation. Trucks breaking down while en route to a delivery can be costly. Some possible challenges due to this are:

  • Unhappy customers
  • Perishable product go bad
  • Alternate vehicles must be pulled into service
  • Product transferred from one truck to another

NetScore’s solution lets you keep track of maintenance activities, schedule preventive maintenance, and let you know when a truck needs maintenance.

Vehicle constraints such as weight capacity, load volume, and truck assets (refrigeration, lift gates) impacts the choice of appropriate truck for a route. Companies need the flexibility to assign appropriate trucks and assets to a route to optimize costs. NetScore’s Delivery Routing Solution helps build routes to optimize the vehicle capacity. It can also ensure keeping the weight well within limits to reduce fines and excessive vehicular wear and tear. Optimizing loads can be accomplished with the right delivery management software.

The right information helps make better routes which in turn reduces costs. NetScore’s Delivery Routing Solution soon will be able to integrate with other solutions to provide enhanced capabilities. Examples of this include integration your NetScore Warehouse Management Solution that allows for delivering product to the loading dock in order sequence. This allows for easier loading of trucks in reverse stop order to make unloading efficient and quick. This solution can integrate with solutions from Google for real time mapping capabilities and Google Cloud Storage. A new integration with Particle enhances features in fleet management and integrating sensor technology which all offer opportunities to remove costs.

Running a cost-effective delivery operations is a challenge. But, leveraging the right software to manage this process will provide a solid return on investment in the form of lower costs, higher customer satisfaction, and optimum performance of your delivery service team. For more information on how NetScore can take your delivery operation to the next level, please reach out to NetScore Account Executive.

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