Tag Archive for: Delivery Routing

How Sustainable Practices Can Transform Last-Mile Logistics

As focus on sustainability gets increasing attention from businesses and consumers, focus on sustainability in delivery operations also is increasing. While much attention is given to speed, cost, and technology, it’s time for routing strategies to embrace eco-friendly practices that benefit both organizations and the environment.

Why Sustainability Matters in Delivery Routing

The carbon footprint of last-mile delivery is greater than many realize. Each mile driven by delivery vehicles contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, especially in urban and suburban areas where traffic congestion increases idle time and fuel consumption. Companies that adopt intentional sustainability measures in routing are discovering unexpected advantages:
  • ●Reduced fuel costs through optimized, eco-friendly routes
  • ●Enhanced brand reputation by prioritizing environmental responsibility
  • ●Compliance with tightening regulations around emissions and vehicle standards
  • ●Stronger customer loyalty from eco-conscious buyers

Strategies for Sustainable Routing

  • ●Route Consolidation: Group deliveries to minimize repeated trips in the same neighborhood, reducing both distance traveled and emissions.
  • ●Real-time Traffic & Weather Integration: Using intelligent routing to avoid congested areas not only saves time, but also cuts pollution caused by idling.
  • ●Electric and Hybrid Fleet Routing: Incorporate vehicle type into route algorithms, scheduling electric vehicles for shorter, urban routes and hybrids for longer journeys.
  • ●Reverse Logistics Optimization: Plan return trips for pickups, recycling, or package returns, lowering the environmental impact per delivery mile. 
  • ●Green Delivery Windows: Offer customers specific time slots when environmentally friendly delivery is possible, such as consolidated neighborhood drop-offs.

Measuring Impact

Companies can track sustainability KPIs like fuel consumption per route, emissions reduction, and successful utilization of green delivery windows. Sharing these metrics with customers as part of post-delivery communications builds transparency and trust.

Why NetScore Delivery Routing Is a Smart Choice for Sustainable Last-Mile Logistics

When it comes to adopting eco-friendly delivery routing, the technology you choose is crucial. NetScore Delivery Routing stands out as an industry leader for several compelling reasons:

  • ●AI-Powered Route Optimization: NetScore leverages artificial intelligence to create the most efficient routes possible, that helps to minimizie miles driven, reduce fuel use, and cut carbon emissions on every trip.
  • ●Seamless NetSuite Integration: Designed natively for NetSuite, NetScore Delivery Routing lets logistics teams manage everything from order fulfillment to customer returns in a single cloud platform. Such a streamlining of workflows reduces the environmental impact of fragmented systems.
  • ●Paperless Operations: Instantly capture Proof of Delivery (POD) with digital signatures and photos on the driver app. This transition to digital eliminates paperwork and delays, and supports company-wide efforts to reduce waste.
  • ●Green Delivery Windows and Load Optimization: By using advanced algorithms, NetScore consolidates loads and identifies opportunities for green delivery windows, helping companies serve more customers with fewer vehicles and trips.
  • ●Proven Fuel & Emissions Reduction: Customers report significant drops in fuel consumption, paper use, and idle time after implementing NetScore Delivery Routing—enhancing both cost savings and eco-value.

Final Thoughts

Eco-friendly delivery routing isn’t just good for the planet—it improves efficiency, cuts costs, and meets growing customer expectations. As businesses rethink their logistics for 2026 and beyond, integrating sustainability into routing is a powerful step forward. By implementing NetScore Delivery Routing, businesses can unlock measurable environmental and operational benefits.

For more information book a demo here.

Extending Your Reach With Delivery Services

Companies are always looking for ways to build relationships with their customers that will extend beyond the product and build customer loyalty. One method being adopted by many companies is providing delivery services to their customers. In a world of social distancing and increased regulations for operating instore activities, having the ability to provide delivery services is increasingly important to keeping businesses viable. The New York Times reported that online consumer spending jumped nearly 40% at the height of the pandemic. In-person shopping had already dramatically decreased prior to the coronavirus as younger shoppers opted for online options.

Delivering the product to the end customer in many cases can run 30% with food deliveries as high as 45% of the total meal cost (TMC) cost. This can be difficult to hide in the cost of the product and is often waived as a competitive edge. Use of third-party delivery services has traditionally been the answer to this question, but many companies such as Amazon are opting to build out their own delivery services. The phenomenal growth of digitally-enabled delivery services indicates that customers value the convenience and variety they provide. McKinsey estimates that the digital food delivery market alone will be worth $22 billion by 2025. Now many companies are looking to tap into that revenue by internalizing their delivery services.

Properly run services can increase customers loyalty, provide lower cost ability to respond to emergency product demand, maintain control of customer data, and tighter control of the delivery process. Delivery services can also be a source of revenue for the seller and increase margin if effectively managed. However, poorly run delivery services can be a costly mistake.

To be effective in planning and executing deliveries, companies are adopting delivery management solutions to streamline how their delivery services are performed. Being able to organize routes and build delivery plans are critical to providing effective services and lowering the cost of managing delivery operations.

NetScore’s Delivery Routing application is built on the NetSuite ERP system to provide a complete planning solution for organizing delivery orders into routes. A mobile application is included to provide drivers with everything they need to carry out the deliveries.

Getting organized is a key element to running a successful delivery operation. As sales orders are processed and fulfilled in your NetSuite solution, NetScore’s Delivery Routing system takes the orders and creates delivery orders. The route planning capability using a geo-point mapping solution to organize the delivery orders into stops on the route. A rule based system allows for further control over the building of routes and can control the number of orders to be included, management of weight and volume capacity by truck type, and time to complete routes based on the calculated transit times between stops. Routes can be adjusted to meet the route planner’s preferences and assigned to a driver.

Keeping control over your delivery fleet is critical to ensure drivers are following the most effective route and keeping on schedule. NetScore gives planners the ability to view graphical representations of each route and see updates as deliveries are completed. A map view shows the planner all drivers location in real time. Routes can be adjusted while they are in progress if needed due to changing requirements by the customer. Delivery orders can even be moved from one driver to another in the event a delivery vehicle breaks down or additional assistance is needed to complete the route.

Making your driver’s life easy is key to running a delivery service that is cost effective and efficient. Route plans that provide the most effective method of accomplishing each delivery is critical. Being able to properly load trucks in reverse stop order makes sure each order to be delivered is properly positioned on the truck. NetScore’s solution produces a route plan that can be used as a picking document or loading document to properly position orders on the truck.

Execution of the route plan is critical to achieve the objective of delivering product on time and at the lowest possible cost to the service provider. Mobile applications now put powerful tools in the hands of drivers to assist them in carrying out their deliveries. Effective applications like NetScore’s Delivery Routing solution provides:

 

  • Travel time between stops.
  • Graphical depictions of the route plan
  • Turn by turn instructions.
  • Order contents to be delivered.
  • The ability to send alerts to customers of impending delivery.
  • Enter reasons for delivery cancellation if the customer refuses delivery.

 

Proof of delivery is an important element to any delivery service to capture signatures, photograph product drops, and note other key information regarding the delivery. This gives the service provider undisputable evidence that the product was professionally delivered and accepted by the customer. NetScore’s mobile application incorporates all these features and allows the driver to quickly gather the information. The proof of delivery information is then automatically uploaded to the backend system and attached to the delivery record. NetScore gives you the value added integration to Google Drive to store pictures and signatures keeping your NetSuite data storage to a minimum.

Moving beyond delivery can be advantageous to many companies to optimize what their delivery service operation can produce for the company. Being able to perform functions like:

  • Picking up returns during their delivery route.
  • Accepting payment from customers for outstanding invoices or cash on delivery orders.
  • Picking up product based on purchase orders issued by the service provider.

NetScore’s Delivery Routing application provides all features described above to your NetSuite system and the associated mobile application.

To help you plan and implement your delivery service, please reach out to NetScore Account Executive.

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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
  • ●Re-assigning routes


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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.