Continuous Improvement In Delivery Performance & Product Freshness

As long as you give me a good price, I can accept deliveries within a time window. This holds true for many companies.

To minimize cost, deliveries are planned to maximize capacity and minimize cost. As such, delivery coordinators will look at say, the number of pallets for customers and assigned the larges trucks to the customers taking the most number of pallets first. The space available is noted for small number of pallet deliveries to the same area. By considering both capacity maximization and route, these deliveries then minimizes cost. Companies usually have limited cold trucks and manpower, so cold trucks are usually assigned to the biggest customer, and/or customers that are most particular. When it is hard for one person to unload products, an assistant is usually assigned. It is also hard to accommodate to specific timing requirements unless the volume and pricing is right.

There are still usually many loose cartons for city deliveries. This is when you can cluster by capacity or location again using small trucks, as it is hard to turn using bigger trucks. In city deliveries

So how do one ensure that delivery schedules are continuously planned to minimize cost? There are 2 ways, one is to set up KPIs for delivery coordinator/driver measure their cartons/delivery cost, break down their delivery cost into fixed and variable transportation cost components. Second, collect travel, product handover times and products that are sent to these customers for continuous improvement.

One way to do this is to associate invoices/delivery orders with delivery personnel and trucks. You can use any GPS system to then collect travel and product handover times by deliver personnel and trucks. This way, any fixed and variable transportation cost can be assigned to specific trucks and even delivery personnel. Measure capacity utilization and overall route timing. Investigate exceptionally long handover times.

What is more associating invoices with delivery personnel and truck is the first step for enhanced track and trace. Invoice information are linked to product sources. Time stamp for delivery start and reach times can be measured to ensure product freshness and traceability.