The Forward-Looking Mirror: The only standard you establish is dealing with change!

Nowadays, you can easily see whether someone drove economically, braked hard, if they were at a certain location or not, and so on. All wonderful ways to see what happened. And that's exactly what it is. Looking at what has already happened. Of course, that's quite important, as you can often learn valuable lessons from the past.

Looking Back

What makes logistics so interesting is that even the near future is always different from what you expect. Traffic jams, road diversions, customers. All factors that play a significant role in daily operations. A wise man once told me about the rearview mirror. It's useless. When you look into it, you see a place you've already been. And if it was so great there, you would have stayed. Perhaps a bit simplistic, but spot on. What I see in logistics is that people primarily use tools that look backward. Looking back to see what happened and if you would have wanted it to. For example, looking back at fuel consumption, with Webfleet-like tools you can see if people drove economically. Having driven, that is looking back. But in practice, this mainly means you only look when you have indications that someone isn't driving economically. Fines, for example, or many damages. But your real objective is usually not that someone drives economically.

Your goal is for someone to consume less. And you always consume less if you drive less. Perfectly logical, but how do you ensure your driver drives less? It starts with the order of stops on a route. Even when unexpected traffic jams occur. Because you can expect them. I very often see that the driver determines the order of stops themselves. When I ask them if a good program could do that faster and better, they always say yes. So: a good program can do this job better than a driver. According to the driver.

The Next Step

How do you get from address to address as quickly as possible? Navigation is one thing, but driving well-informed might be even more important. A digital assistant is indispensable for this. A program always has the complete overview, and a human doesn't. Think of traffic jams, incidents, road closures, etc. If you have that information available, you truly know when you'll be where. We call that the forward-looking mirror! Let the recipient look into that forward-looking mirror by communicating possible delivery times in advance. Then they can decide if they'll be there when you deliver. Otherwise, you'll still drive for nothing, and then you'll always drive more than necessary. Economical or not... if you can drive less than necessary, you should do it. And, are you there yet? No, the most important thing is yet to come. Make sure you can handle changes in your routes. Because the world changes; a recipient simply goes to the beach when the weather is nice, traffic jams occur, and your driver takes their break when it suits them. This means that the most efficient route as you see it in the morning is completely outdated by the end of the day.

Adapt and Adjust

Give the driver the information and freedom to make different choices. He or she is perfectly capable of incorporating on-the-road conditions into the work order; software and humans complement each other perfectly here. The software must be able to incorporate these changes into constantly updating routes. And that's how you combine the best of both worlds. You help the driver with the most efficient route, as far as you can determine it in the morning. And you give them the freedom to change things throughout the day. With the optimization component helping them immediately drive the most efficient route again, given the circumstances!

How to optimize your delivery process:

1. Use smart software to arrange stops in the correct order and determine the fastest route;

1. Record the approximate time you will arrive at a stop;

1. Communicate the delivery time with your customers (if necessary) and adjust as needed;

1. Allow your customers and your driver the freedom to carry out the work as they see fit;

1. Then manage based on what you know will happen.

And, this way of working... What does it yield for you? Besides a happy driver? Well, for example, that customers prefer to receive packages through you because they then know when they'll have the package? Or that you're sure you won't drive to an address for nothing? You won't have to load packages that, after a long day on board, return to your hub undelivered? Or perhaps the savings from driving longer than necessary. Generally speaking, companies that work this way benefit from savings of between 10 and 20% on their logistics operations. This means you won't need to replace one out of every ten vehicles and drivers if you maintain the same company size.