Dispatching Methodologies – Static versus Dynamic Routing by Peter D. Wallace
The definition of dispatching means different things to different people, typically depending on which industry you are in. Truck dispatching for long haul carriers is a niche business, package delivery is another type of dispatching employed by the familiar carriers such as UPS and FedEx, and of course there is maintenance dispatching which has a unique set of circumstances all its own. However, when you boil it down there are some commonalities.
In our business of dispatching techs and vendors for service repair or preventive maintenance, we deal with all sorts of variables in the equation. However, it is typically a well defined route for a service tech. For example, a tech might service 50 stores in his territory and he knows them all very well, inside and out. He knows the addresses, the best back roads to get there quickly, and he knows the managers. All the tech needs is a list of service calls and he can figure out on his own which one to go to first, which one is 2nd and so on. This is called Static Routing.
But in the package delivery industry the stores or stops are not well known. A typical UPS driver might be on a given route for a month or two and then switch to the other side of town. He services potentially thousands of addresses and various delivery times based on the class of service. In this scenario, the driver relies on software to tell him where to go, in order, and the best route to take. This is called Dynamic Routing.
From a maintenance perspective, dynamic routing software takes all of the orders to be completed in the next 24 or 48 hours, and based on pre-defined territories in the system, assigns the orders to the service techs and assigns the order that they are to be serviced. So, a tech does not have any decisions to make. He goes through the orders one by one as dictated on his PDA. The dynamic routing software can do this because it has geocode (lat/long) information for every address. Using mapping technology, the software routes the techs in the most efficient manner through the day.
This type of software requires that the techs use GPS transmitters in their trucks. When a tech comes close to one of the scheduled stop locations, the software automatically marks him as “arrived” on site. The software keeps close track of the tech as he moves through his route, noting any route deviations or unscheduled stops.
Dynamic routing systems provide a tool for management to track, in real time, the movement of the maintenance work force. Of course, this puts a tight leash on a technician which can bother some organizations. The other caveat is that if an emergency call comes in during the day, then the orders have to be “racked and stacked” all over again to account for the emergency. This can be troublesome in the maintenance world, but hardly ever comes into play in the long haul trucking industry or even the package delivery business.
From a CrossForm perspective, dispatching is done with static routes and with the tech or a coordinator deciding when and where the tech will go during the day. This method has proven effective for our customers. However, Mainstream has been in contact with a software company that provides a dynamic routing solution and there is a possibility in the future of our products integrating with one another. Or, if we have enough customer interest, we might just do our own skinnied down version of dynamic routing whereby the GPS coordinates are received from the wireless device and the orders are marked with the DAR (Dispatched, Arrived On Site) status automatically as the vehicle comes within 100 yards of the destination.
In conclusion, dynamic routing can offer efficiencies and cost savings to maintenance companies that service a wide variety of customers or locations, where the locations are not necessarily well known. There are several GPS tracking software packages out there on the market, but few that offer true dynamic routing. One such package is called RoadNet ® and if you would like to read further, check out this URL: http://www.upslogisticstech.com.
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