How DispatchTrack's Calendar-Based Scheduling Supports Building Material Distributors

Routing vs. scheduling—which one is more important for building material distributors? In a perfect world, those processes would be one and the same. To get the most out of your capacity and ensure that you arrive on time at the job site, you need the kind of modern route optimization capabilities that empower 98% ETA accuracy and improved capacity usage.

At the same time, a lot of businesses want to tackle routing and scheduling problems with a calendar-based approach. That’s why DispatchTrack recently enhanced its industry-leading route optimization to offer calendar-based routing and scheduling.

Our route optimization already gives building material distributors the power to identify the right trucks and personnel for the right orders, generate delivery routes and schedules quickly (in many cases more than 50% faster than the alternative), and consistently deliver on time. Now, those same capabilities will be available via a convenient calendar view.?

In this post, we’ll dig into the rationale behind this feature and the ways that our users can leverage it to make their lives easier and delight their customers.?

Why Do Distributors Need Calendar-Based Scheduling??

When it comes to the building materials distribution, the name of the game is visibility. You need visibility into orders as they’re being delivered, but you also need to be able to instantly visualize your vehicle and driver/technician capacity, your existing delivery plans, your inventory that’s ready to ship, and more.

Different jobs will take different amounts of time. Different inventory will have to be loaded onto different types of vehicles. Meanwhile, your customers will inevitably demand their orders that same day or the next day, so however you’re going to map out your routes and schedules you have to do it fast.?

Visibility into your delivery capacity is especially crucial in cases where your team is performing some type of installation or service on site. These may be deliveries from the perspective of your logistics tools, but they’re really more like service calls. That’s why many building material distributors have historically done their scheduling via calendars that show everyone’s availabilities and existing schedules in an easy-to-digest way.?

Unfortunately, when it comes to last mile logistics, that can get really messy and complicated. really quickly.?

Modern, AI-powered route optimization can quickly and easily solve the challenges that we’ve laid out above. If you’re trying to optimize the allocation of vehicles and drivers based on your current order mix—and do it quickly enough to get customers their order at the right time—then the right routing solution is crucial.?

As such, a lot of building material suppliers are modernizing their technology and bolstering their routing capabilities. This can be extremely valuable and save time and money, but a frequent casualty of this update is the ease-of-use and simplicity of a calendar-based view.?

Enter DispatchTrack’s calendar-based routing and scheduling module.?

How DispatchTrack’s Calendar-Based Scheduling Works

With our new calendar-based routing and scheduling, we’ve taken the best-in-class route optimization capabilities that our customers rely on and presented them within a new interface to enable users to visualize routes and schedules on a calendar.?

Here’s what the new view offers:

• Schedule, route, and dispatch in an intuitive calendar view: Users can view a map and calendar side by side to quickly and easily visualize the timelines for each route in the system.?
• Drag and drop across orders, delivery calendar, and interactive map: DispatchTrack’s route optimization is designed for ease-of-use, which is why we enable route and schedule adjustments by dragging and dropping stops—including directly on the calendar.?
• Equipment and driver assignments–as easy as scheduling a meeting: From the calendar-based routing screen, you can assign an order to a driver or route and it will immediately populate on the calendar so you can visualize the change.?
• Optimize routes for distance or time with the click of a button: DispatchTrack’s existing capabilities in terms of optimizing routes and schedules with the click of a button can now be utilized directly from the calendar view so you can immediately see the impact on the schedule.?
• Schedule the day or the entire delivery week: Giving users a larger planning horizon can add serious value for users in the building materials area. In addition to a daily view of the route plan, you can also visualize and optimize the entire week from a single view.?
• Color code by order or truck to accelerate visual verification and quality checks: These enhancements are all about getting the information you want—the way you wanted—that much faster. We’ve added additional UX improvements so users can easily spot the information they need.?

There’s a lot more that could be said about the ins and outs of this feature. But the important headline is this: DispatchTrack users can now route and schedule via a calendar with the same ease and efficiency as our classic routing screen.?

To learn more about DispatchTrack's solution for building supplies distributors, read the rest of the article here: https://www.dispatchtrack.com/blog/calendar-based-scheduling