Routing vs. Scheduling: What's the Difference and Why Do You Need Both?

Rout planning and scheduling may already be part of your daily routine if you handle delivery operations or lead a mobile crew of repair or maintenance workers. To the contrary, knowing the specific benefits offered by each of these technologies may help you achieve more success, increase the delivery or service capacity of your firm, and generate substantially more revenue.

Scheduling and route planning are like trying to eat a bowl of soup with chopsticks if you don't know what they are and how they work together. In this article, we'll go over the functions of each tool, the advantages they offer, and why you should know how to use them both.

 

To What Extent Do Routing And Scheduling Differ?

Scheduling is the process of selecting who and when deliveries will be made and when they will be delivered.. Routing is the process of determining the routes that drivers will take to complete these deliveries.

In order to better understand the differences between routing and scheduling, let's take a deeper look. All of these tasks are part of the scheduling process, including receiving orders or service requests, calculating the number of employees (and vehicles) needed to complete those orders, and allocating staff to orders within certain time constraints. To have a successful field operation, you almost always need to plan ahead of time.

Route planning is the process of taking your schedule into consideration and drawing up the best possible routes for delivery trucks or service staff. Transportation expenses, vehicle capacity, and travel duration are all factors to consider while constructing a route, whereas scheduling considers the availability of workers and their workloads.

 

Delivery's Companion Duo: Routing & Scheduling

You may develop your firm, handle more orders, and expand effectively with the aid of scheduling and routing. There is nothing better than combining routing with scheduling, like peanut butter and jelly in a lunchtime staple.

 

Describe The Concept Of Route Scheduling & Explain How It Works

Using route scheduling, a driver may plan their service, delivery, and arrival times for their routes. Routing ensures that customers are served properly and on time while also increasing the number of service appointments each day.

 

Optimization of Scheduling and Route Planning Operations has a number of benefits, including the following.

More Money in the Bank
A well-planned schedule guarantees that you have just the right number of employees on hand to fulfill orders, without having too many. You'll be able to meet demand while reducing waste as a consequence. Scheduling troubles caused by an inefficient or haphazard operation may result in you paying staff to wait around.

Once you have a solid itinerary in place, route planning may be optimized.. An Asian transportation company was able to increase profits by 16 percent using computational route optimization without losing quality, according to McKinsey. With software like OptimoRoute, planning time is reduced, driver capacity is increased, and kilometers driven are reduced.

 

An Improved Workforce

Because they increase productivity, scheduling and route planning can lead to an increase in revenue. For the most part, lost work time is the result of inefficiency.

If you stick to a timetable, you'll be able to meet your deadlines. A well-planned route saves money on petrol, reduces travel time, and allows managers to schedule breaks for mobile workers who have the least impact on a service route.. Telgian's planning became 82% more efficient after using route-optimization software, reducing the number of labor hours required for planning from 312 to just 56. An easy-to-use OptimoRoute feature allowed Telgian to immediately identify the most efficient routes for its safety inspector's multi-day trips, and to discover where additional visits might be scheduled.

 

There is a rise in productivity

According to studies, contented employees are 13% more productive than unsatisfied ones. Employee satisfaction may be ensured through strategic planning.

A well-executed scheduling and route planning system can allow you to give your staff greater freedom to spend time with their families or arrange for cover if they choose to attend a child's sports game, for example.

To find out which companies had the highest ratio of actively disengaged workers to actively engaged employees, Gallup analyzed data from 49 publicly listed enterprises. A company's total performance is strongly influenced by the level of engagement and productivity of its employees.

 

Optimize Your Scheduling & Planning Before You Begin

Scheduling and truck routing might become outmoded if you don't regularly examine them. If your rival can deliver in half the time you can, you'll lose customers. Amazon and other logistical behemoths like them have shifted consumer expectations by making fast and free shipping widely available. More than seven out of ten BigCommerce customers say they've canceled an e-commerce order because of "unsatisfactory delivery options."

Even worse, if a customer cancels or adjusts an order at the last minute, or if one of your drivers calls in sick, you have to start from scratch. However, staying ahead of the curve in an ever-evolving technological landscape does not have to be a drag. Routing and mapping software has helped Telgian, Hardie's Fresh Foods, and The Little Posy Co. better their scheduling and planning in three very different firms.