Descartes solutions use real-time data to provide visibility into delivery cycles to help you improve route scheduling, exception handling, and customer service
Managing fluctuating delivery cycles, constantly changing routes and a demanding customer base that insists upon timely delivery of goods, is an ongoing challenge for rental product delivery organizations. It is critical to ensure that deliveries and pickups – whether pre-scheduled or booked on the same day – are handled as efficiently and accurately as possible. Whether delivering rented goods for a party or equipment to a construction site, satisfying time and service commitments are not just competitive differentiators, they are a matter of survival.
Challenges on the Road
Fluctuating Delivery Demands: Unlike other types of operations, where deliveries are made according to a fixed schedule, volumes and deadlines can change every day. Rental product suppliers may also be called on to make last minute stops and pick-ups on an ad hoc basis, which can put an increased burden on fleet operations and costs. At times, the expense of renting additional delivery vehicles may be the only option to ensure deliveries are made on time.
No Margin for Error: Commitment to the customer is everything for a rental business. When relying on the delivery of equipment or other products for a special event or project, any delays or inefficiencies cost time and money. Customers need to be assured that their orders will arrive on schedule so they can better manage their own resources.
Distributed Model: Deliveries are often handled through multiple branch locations, making it increasingly complex to coordinate and manage deliveries in a timely and efficient manner.
Dynamic Customer Base: Meeting the needs of a constantly changing customer base places an increased burden on dispatchers to be accurate and efficient in directing drivers to locations.
Exception Handling: Handling exceptions on the road can quickly undermine even the best-laid scheduling plans. Truck breakdowns, traffic tie-ups or any other number of variables can quickly jeopardize a customer delivery. Last minute call-ins, exceptions and route changes, can lead to escalating costs, missed deliveries and reduced customer service – which ultimately translates into lost revenues on all sides.
Real-time Visibility: Few operations have the capability to gain visibility into their fleet activities once their drivers are on the road. Real-time visibility, however, is essential to achieving more cost-effective deployment of resources. These challenges place a tremendous burden on rental organizations to achieve supply chain efficiencies while handling fluctuating volumes. It is key to optimize delivery cycles in conjunction with the ability to generate more capacity within an existing delivery network. While getting a real-time view of fleet operations during the day to address these demands has historically been an expensive and complex proposition, it can now be achieved at a fraction of the cost of conventional solutions.
Descartes provides an on-demand logistics management solution that is offered on a pay-as-you go basis. The Descartes solution uses real-time data to provide visibility into delivery cycles to help you improve route scheduling, exception handling, and customer service.
Descartes Delivers. As a provider of on-demand, subscription-based solutions, Descartes delivers an affordable, flexible, and easy-to-deploy solution that helps organizations with rental product delivery operations to improve delivery accuracy, manage change, and enhance customer service, while reducing costs.
Our supply chain and logistics solutions include:
- Order management and notification
- Routing and real-time dispatch
- Mapping/Geocoding
- Dispatch management and planning
- Real-time ETA
- Real-time updates and exception capture
- Business analysis and productivity reporting
Few rental product organizations have the resources to track deliveries with any true accuracy, and many still rely on paper-based processes to get the job done. When you rely on trucks to make on-schedule deliveries, real-time visibility is critical to ensure routes are coordinated. Descartes delivers a number of benefits to your delivery operations, including:
Improved On Time Delivery Performance: With ongoing visibility into the delivery cycle, the Descartes solutions can significantly improve on-time delivery accuracy and performance. Narrow delivery windows can be offered, with delivery status and ETA available in real time.
Improved Delivery Accuracy: Descartes’ geocoding capabilities used at point-of-sale can accurately pinpoint locations, and provide maps and turn-by-turn driving instructions for drivers to ensure narrow time windows are met.
Lower Operating and Financial Risk: As a hosted solution, Descartes eliminates the capital costs associated with procuring an in-house system.
Optimized Capacity Planning: Now you can aggregate deliveries within similar regions throughout the day and incorporate pick-ups more efficiently, while ensuring you have room for equipment on delivery vehicles to meet a customer’s needs.
Proactive Exception Management in the Field: Because driver activity data is updated and accessible in real time, dispatchers can proactively respond to service disruptions or delays and immediately adjust schedules and update customers on the ETA of their goods.
Proactive Customer Notification: Automated customer callouts can be used in advance of scheduled deliveries to notify customers of ETAs. This enables customers to plan for the appropriate resources and schedule their labor needs around planned delivery windows.
Tracking against Engineered Plans: With Descartes you can create a plan and track it in real-time to optimize efficiencies, reduce miles driven and increase stops per paid hour.
Descartes’ analytical functions can help managers assess planned versus actual drive and service times to increase driver productivity and accountability, measure on-time percentages, determine schedule adjustments and maximize resources on the road.
Enhanced Planning Based on Historical Data: Descartes provides a variety of customized reporting features that enable you to review delivery history and assess activities by driver, by area, by customer, or by any other grouping for improved planning and deployment of resources and time window accuracy.
Improved Process Control: Information available through Descartes can also help customers coordinate appropriate staffing for scheduled delivery times.
Measurable Benefits
In addition to qualitative improvements in productivity, driver accountability and customer service, Descartes customers have experienced:
- Up to 30% improvement in on-time delivery
- Up to 33% increased vehicle utilization
- Up to 50% more cases and stops per route
- Up to 20% increase in DC space usage
- Up to 15% reduction in labor costs within the DC