Brought to you by OniGroup
Traditional route optimization software is based on a complex monolith of ever-changing business requirements and static data. Often these services are 10+ years old and have been built by team members who have either left the business or who no longer manage the software. Additionally, they are exceptionally difficult to replace and even harder to innovate or enhance for meeting the changing needs of the logistics industry.
As with traditional taxis and on-demand delivery, it’s now the turn of multi-stop fleet route optimization to be disrupted. Introducing Route Optimization AI , a flexible API hosted on Google’s Cloud infrastructure bolstered by the rich location services and data sets of Google Maps Platform. Route Optimization AI is a new way to integrate, model and execute complex fleet scenarios on a global scale.
Route Optimization AI is centred on finding efficiencies to reduce costs or create new revenue streams. It ingests your data points (constraints) to be processed against real-world location and traffic data to maximize efficiency through a simple REST API request. Users can then remodel or adjust the scenario to adapt to real world challenges.
The core technology within the API is Cloud Fleet Routing, which solves Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs). For example, you have a fleet of 1000 vehicles, including deliveries, items for pick up and other related constraints such as cost, weight or margin. The API can process and return the following, sometimes in a matter of seconds, not hours or days:
Maximum fleet utilization (assets) to complete each pickup/delivery based on pre-defined SLAs, including:
The maximum permitted mileage per vehicle
Route duration management for each vehicle to meet operating hour requirements
Imposing fixed costs to manage to budget for vehicles
Weight & capacity restrictions
Set start/end locations
Custom time windows with predictive ETAs for visiting locations within a set time range or when a customer has selected a specific time to receive their delivery
This includes using historic data to calculate expected dwell times into the ETA
Optimized routes to meet sustainability goals based on different vehicle types such as EVs
Create territory or delivery zones based on demand or facility capabilities
Leverage the global scale of Google Cloud Platform to process complex data sets, constraints & business requirements using the same technology that powers Google search, Maps & Workspace. Focus on pre-planning fleets, outcomes & meeting customer needs rather than managing infrastructure. As OAI uses an API, routing algorithms cannot not only be programmed but customized to enable adjustments, enhancements and new constraints to be easily modeled, greatly reducing development time while maintaining full control.
Routing is not just about delivering packages, it’s also about security teams transporting high value goods, attending high risk areas or even mobile workers visiting multiple locations for maintenance. These are similar routing challenges but with different complex constraints. OAI enables complex routing to take into account specific requirements such as ad hoc events or disruptions to re-optimise sequences and update time windows. Building routes via the Google Maps Platform and 3rd party data to mitigate risk through minimizing traffic or dwell times in high risk areas.
Pre-planning enables better decision making to execute against the plan. However, without the right day of execution technology, adherement to the plan can be complex, hard to track and even ignored. OAI was designed to integrate directly into Google’s Last Mile Fleet Solutions (LMFS). LMFS is a modular toolkit to solve fundamental challenges around Last Mile Delivery delivery enabling fleets to follow the plan and achieve KPIs, via:
OniGroup has been working with the largest logistics, delivery and mobile workforce companies in the world to design, develop and implement solutions to solve first and last mile delivery challenges. We work face to face with our customers to quantify their current business problems in multiple markets which enables Oni to understand how to solve these challenges for your business.
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