Rebuilding daily routes around real constraints
A previous routing rollout had been abandoned because the model did not know the rules dispatch actually worked to. This one started with those rules.
- Modeled miles reduction
- 7 to 10%Against historical route replay on matched demand days
- Constraint violations
- ZeroIn the accepted plan set, by design of the constraint model
- Dispatcher acceptance
- TrackedOverride rate instrumented as the adoption metric
The situation
Routes had been built by tenured dispatchers and were stable but had never been tested against alternatives.
An earlier optimization attempt was overridden within days and quietly shelved.
Delivery windows, driver hours, and customer specific access rules existed mostly as institutional knowledge.
What we did
- 1
Spent the first two weeks with dispatch documenting the unwritten constraints before touching a solver.
- 2
Built a capacitated vehicle routing model with time windows, hours of service, and customer specific handling rules.
- 3
Ran the model against historical days and reviewed differences route by route with the dispatchers who owned them.
- 4
Deployed as a daily run with a dispatcher override path and instrumentation on how often overrides were used.
Other engagements
All work- Network Design
Consolidating a nine site distribution footprint
A network that had grown by acquisition was carrying duplicate coverage in three regions. Optimization showed the footprint could contract without losing next day reach.
- Simulation
Sizing an automation investment before signing
A vendor proposal promised throughput that the demand profile never actually required, and understated the staffing needed on the days that mattered.
- Forecasting
Forecasting a long tail service parts catalog
Exponential smoothing was being applied uniformly to a catalog where most items moved a handful of times a year, producing confident forecasts of zero.