Dispatching

What is Dispatching?

Dispatch is a procedure for assigning employees (workers) or vehicles to tasks (like shifts or routes). Industries that dispatch include transport companies, taxicabs, couriers, emergency services, as well as home and commercial services.

Why optimize Dispatching?

When there are a considerable number of employees or vehicles to assign to tasks, it quickly becomes complex to do this in the most optimal way. Typically a number of factors need to be considered such as availability, working time legislation, capabilities, distance, and other restrictions. Therefore, some members in a planning team have the role of dispatcher, and because of the complexity, in general supported by software solutions.

How to optimize Dispatching?

Software solutions can provide proposals for assigning the best employee or vehicle to a task, based on a large number of decision rules. Optimization software solutions can also assign in one batch a large number of vehicles or employees to a set of tasks. Common practice is that it is applied in a hybrid way: the solution of the optimizer is reviewed by the user, and sometimes manually changed, e.g., by overruling some constraints.

What are the results of optimizing Dispatching?

When optimizing dispatching with the ORTEC scheduler and optimizers it is possible to incorporate a huge range of business requirements, including:

• Congestion pattern analysis that takes account of traffic information to improve ETA accuracy
• Flexible approach to time restrictions
• Respecting regulations on driving time
• Regulations on distribution of axle weight
• Hazardous route restrictions and length, width, height and weight route restrictions
• Cross-docking and consolidation of transport orders
• The ability to incorporate compartment planning
• Support for intermodal transportation
• Fleet cleaning and maintenance schedules

Why contact ORTEC to optimize Dispatching?

ORTEC has strong optimization software solutions, focused on supporting the dispatcher. Functionality includes batch optimization and proposal functionality during planning and during execution for all kind of resources, like employee, truck, trailer, etc. Strong improvements are made by the customers by using this functionality, which can be used in combination with centralization and execution.