Greensboro Case Meeting Summary (June 16-17)

The original master plan for the 200 route involved adding an extra route (2900) for an opening order and another route (2304) for a special order. The speaker, Jessica, identified that an existing route (2205) had capacity, so she moved the opening order to 2205. This caused route 2205 to be slightly over capacity, leading her to move stop 11 from 2205 to 2304. This cascading series of moves was done manually, as the system does not automatically perform such optimizations.

A violation indicating an early delivery for stop 2 was noted. Jessica explained that early deliveries are generally acceptable, and any such violation would typically be resolved by contacting customer support, who would then inform the stores about the early arrival. Early deliveries are preferred over late ones, especially if stores are given advanced notice, as routes are usually scheduled a day in advance.

The primary improvements achieved through these manual optimizations included reducing the number of routes, decreasing mileage, and saving on labor (one person) and equipment (tractor and trailer). The current focus of their operations is to cut hours and mileage to reduce overall costs.

Jessica inquired about the possibility of exporting planning data from 'last mile operations' in production to a test environment to run further scenarios or perform comparisons. It was clarified that direct export as an Excel file is not possible, but there is a copy script that can transfer orders and routes from production to test. This script is usually run by NDCP personnel upon request (via chat or email), requiring only the dates and department for execution.

In a second scenario, the issue was an 'on-time delivery' violation, specifically a late arrival by two hours. Jessica resolved this by adjusting the dispatch time of the route to an earlier start. Another violation concerned off-duty time; the initial plan had a 13-hour layover, which was reduced to 10 hours and 40 minutes. The standard minimum off-duty time for drivers is 10 hours. The longer layover was initially set to prevent early arrival violations at specific stores with strict delivery windows, allowing drivers to arrive at the correct time rather than waiting unnecessarily. However, by adding 500 extra cases to the route, the driver's schedule was already pushed back, negating the need for an extended layover and making the 10-hour reset sufficient.