Scheduling and routing solutions are also adding new business intelligence capabilities in order to help manage more employees in a wider variety of roles, including subcontractors, delivery drivers, and even customers.
1. Scheduling/Routing Technology
Scheduling and routing solutions are also adding new business
intelligence capabilities in order to help manage more employees in a
wider variety of roles, including subcontractors, delivery drivers, and
even customers.
This Scheduling / routing Solutions has huge opportunity for
most of the industries
1. Transport Industry
2. Manufacturing Industry
3. Process & Industrial Plant
4. Environmental Industry
5. Water Industry
6. FMCG or CPG Industry
7. Energy Industry
8. IT Industry
9. Educational Institution
10. Travel and tourism Industry
11. Import and Export Industry
12. Fishing Industry
13. Agricultural Industry
14. Infrastructure
15. Film Industry
16. Healthcare
17. Food delivery
18. Hospitality
And much more industries need this technology for effective
utilization of the resources and do more.
2. Transport industry
Vehicle Routing, Scheduling and Logistics Software
We supply advanced routing & scheduling software to vehicle fleet operators
Paragon delivers software solutions that cut transport costs, improve efficiency and raise
customer service levels. With over 2,300 systems installed at 750 customer sites, our
software is used for daily route scheduling and optimisation, strategic transport planning,
and real time fleet management
Manufacturing industry
- Optimal routing and scheduling in flexible manufacturing systems
using integer programming
- Routing flexibility and production scheduling in a flexible manufacturing system
Process route map
Routing Solutions Help to do more with less
resources
Rising fuel / Travel / relocation costs and a capacity shortage are driving the need for
better scheduling and routing systems
Fleet operators are under tremendous pressure right now. With the cost of fuel rising,
companies have to find ways to reduce the total number of miles driven during each shift. The
rebound in the logistics and shipping industry has increased demand for services, but there is
currently a shortage of trained drivers, as well as a capacity crunch due to the contraction and
3. consolidation that occurred during the recent recession. Operators need to serve more
customers with fewer resources, and do so as efficiently as possible. Many are evaluating new
scheduling and routing solutions to better manage their field service or delivery fleets.
“Now is a good time to make an investment in scheduling/routing technology,”
says Jeff Groenke, vice president of sales and marketing at Cheetah Software
Systems. “As the economy improves, companies need to grow by improving
efficiencies and productivity, not by adding more drivers and equipment — this
also helps in weathering future economic storms.”
To be effective, these solutions must have a strong mobile component that allows employees
to access relevant customer data in the field. Routing systems should also allow schedulers to
have a higher-level view of how well the fleet is operating by providing real-time analysis and
alerts.
“When done right, the scheduling software automates them all in a finely choreographed
dance where no minute is wasted, and each move smoothly flows to the next,” says
Israel Beniaminy, senior vice president for product strategy at CickSoftware.
“This orchestration demands higher intelligence in scheduling decisions, and it also sets
a very high bar for visibility: Letting colleagues, contractors and customers view the
schedule, receive alerts and request changes. These visibility requirements are
increasingly being addressed via inspiration from social media such as Facebook and
Twitter.
Dynamic Routing Is In Demand
“The availability of inexpensive GPS and tracking information has lead to innovations in
the industry such as real-time
Tracking, map displays and route analytics,” says Paresh Hirapara, president and CEO
of Enaptive. “Greater availability of data and analytics has opened the doors to an
unprecedented potential for business process optimization throughout the industry. The
main challenge remaining in the industry is integrating GPS and tracking information
into existing processes and infrastructure.”Customers want access to up-to-the-minute
estimated times of arrival (ETA),“breadcrumb” functionality that can record a vehicle’s
location over time, new mobile devices, and cost-effective access to more advanced
capabilities like bar code scanning, digital photos, and signature capture in the field.
4. “Dynamic route optimization is another key piece of functionality that clients are
interested in implementing,” says Bob Skinner, CEO of Agentek. “Live traffic updates
are now available and add value to the routing challenge.”
Rerouting drivers and adjusting the schedule on the fly through dynamic routing is an important
function that can help fleet operators differentiate themselves in the marketplace by more
quickly responding to customer requests. “Determining how quickly a driver is moving on a route
allows planners to determine in real-time whether a driver is going toarrive according to
schedule or, if late, rearrange the schedule and other routes to accommodate last-minute
schedule changes,” Hirapara says.
While rugged mobile computers are still the device of choice for most field service
applications, end users in the direct store delivery, logistics, office equipment repair, and
other markets are adopting smartphones and new tablet devices.“As the cost of
smartphone hardware is rapidly reduced, we’re noticing a trend away from rugged
devices — hardware is becoming almost disposable,” Groenke says.
“Smartphone devices provide everything that rugged devices used to be required for
(bar code scanning, signature capture, picture taking), at a lower price point.”
Consumer-grade GPS devices (like the Garmin) are also used in some of these
applications, but typically in conjunction with an enterprise-level routing solution. Off-
the-rack GPS systems generally can’t handle the requirements of most fleet operators.
“Dot on a map solutions don’t compete with the functionality that routing and scheduling
solutions offer,” Skinner says.
Routing Solutions Help Operators Do More with Less Rising fuel costs and a capacity
shortage are driving the need for better scheduling and routing systems. by Brian
Albright Israel Beniaminy senior VP for product strategy,ClickSoftware Jeff Groenke VP
of sales and marketing,Cheetah Software Systems Paresh
“Early on in the evaluation process, it’s important to identify champions within the
organization ... If there isn’t sufficient buy-in throughout the organization, the solution
can fail.”Paresh Hirapara, Hirapara president and CEO,Enaptive FieldTechnologiesOnline.com
Navigating the Software Selection Process
When making evaluations of scheduling and routing software, it’s a good idea to test the
solution using historical data, and even do ride-along with
the vendor’s other customers. Involve your IT and operations teams, and ask
technicians for their input, as well.Try to find a partner that will aggressively prequalify
the solution to ensure it’s a good fit, and have a longterm plan for the implementation.
5. “While it is usually a good idea to go for a phased approach, evaluators of scheduling
solutions should have a comprehensive vision and bring in staff members responsible
for all parts of that vision,” Beniaminy says. “For example,even if the scheduling is
initially intended to be rolled out only to the groups that perform small tasks with short
planning horizons (e.g., break-fix), if you believe it will eventually also be used by
groups involved in more complex tasks (e.g., complex installations) then these groups
should also be represented.
”What about software as a service (Saas) or cloudbased solutions? These types of
systems are not for everyone, but they can accelerate implementation and reduce
costs. Smaller companies often favor these solutions because their work processes are
simpler compared to larger enterprises.
“SaaS solutions are increasingly prevalent due to both improvements in cloud
technologies and infrastructure, and the desire of customers to eliminate risk, gain a
quicker ROI, reduce up-front costs, and reduce internal support requirements,”Groenke
says. “Even larger corporations are considering SaaS, while the vast majority of small to
medium companies are strongly considering SaaS solutions over on-premise
solutions.”No matter what deployment model you follow, find a system that can adapt to
your needs over time, and that can incorporate new technologies as they are
introduced. “Start with listing the features and functionality which you believe could be
relevant to your organization, even if not relevant today, and check for how well the
vendor’s roadmap aligns with that list,” Beniaminy says. “Recognize that the future is at
best only partially visible, and therefore evaluate the vendor’s past performance in
reacting to, and leveraging, technology and business disruptions.”
Technology roadmap/routemap
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6. Fig 1: The Technology Roadmapping phases.
A technology roadmap is a plan that matches short-term and long-term goals with
specific technology solutions to help meet those goals.[1]
It is a plan that applies to a
new product or process, or to an emerging technology.[2]
Developing a roadmap has
three major uses.[3]
It helps reach a consensus about a set of needs and the
technologies required to satisfy those needs; it provides a mechanism to help forecast
technology developments and it provides a framework to help plan and coordinate
technology developments.
The existence of product managers in the product software industry indicates that
software is becoming more commercialized as a standard product. This manager is
responsible over the whole line of software requirement management, defining of
products and their releases and this with all internal and external stakeholders involved.
In this context, product roadmapping can be placed to aid software product managers in
planning and placing their products with the use of scientific and technological
resources. For managing and using the technological resources technology planning
can be used.
Design, Planning, Production, Operation &
Maintenance roadmap/route map
Information Collected and Prepared by :
Raghunathan Janarthanan
raghunathan.contact@gmail.com