Core concepts of Delivery

Below are six core concepts that underpin Delivery solution vocabulary. They will also help you better understand the content provided in the later User Documentation articles.  

1. Dynamic scheduling means that our schedules are being constantly recalculated and optimised to find the most efficient route for orders being placed. In essence: 

   1. Each new order, amendment, and cancellation triggers schedule recalculation.

   2. The same for resource updates: changes in vehicles, shifts, speed profiles are taken into account immediately while regenerating schedules. 

2. Real time and accurate GetSlot - available slots are calculated and retrieved within seconds, ensuring your customers see them instantly.

   1. GetSlot considers already established trips, predicted on-the-road travel distance/duration, available shifts, remaining vehicle capacity, service time.

   2. There is no significant separation between trips built for GetSlots and final trips.

3. Scheduling vs. routing - scheduling is responsible for placing orders into trips, while routing focuses on finding the shortest paths between customer locations. 

   1. Scheduling calculates which orders are best to go with which trips using routing as one of the inputs. It is done in Delivery Core as presented in architectural view. 

   2. Routing, aka mapping, calculates distance/duration between any given order. It is done in Satalia Routing Service as presented in architectural view.

   3. The same scheduling and routing solutions are used for GetSlot and schedule finalisation phases. 

4. Optimisation objective – the optimisation objective defines the KPIs that will be maximised while optimising the schedules/routes. 

   1. The optimisation objective is organised in hierarchy as follows: 1 - maximise scheduled orders; 2 - minimise trips used; 3 - minimise time, duration or distance. 

   2. There are slight differences in the objective while the schedules are being built vs. when it needs finalising. This allows them to offer more slots during the “draft” phase. 

5. Various constraints and other rules - a set of rules, set up in Control Room or via Delivery APIs that optimisation will respect and take into account while producing final schedules. Key constraints include: 

   1. Vehicle & shift related: capacity start & end time, breaks, start & end custom locations, speed profiles.

   2. Order priority. 

   3. Categorical matching of order to trips with flags. 

   4. Territory management. 

6. Core API and Control Room UI 

   1. Core API is used for slot retrieval, order and schedule management integrated within the client ecosystem. 

   2. Control Room is a user interface to review scheduling outcomes and proceed with manual interventions, resource and process configuration.