Glossary
This glossary contains descriptions of keywords used in this user guide:
1. Depots
Depot - a centralised facility for a predefined catchment area, where items are loaded onto vehicles and dispatched for delivery. And, where applicable, returned to. In the system, if not defined otherwise, all trips start and end in the depot by default. Each depot has its own fleet, shifts, and schedules.
Bay - a designated area within a depot where vehicles are loaded or unloaded. It’s a constraint that describes how many vehicles can be loaded at the same time.
2. Vehicles
Vehicle - a machine that transports items from the depot to order locations or returns them to the depot. In the system, the key parameters of the vehicle are constraints and speed profiles.
Constraint - a measure of vehicle capacity. In the system, it can be flexibly defined to relevant business specifications, e.g. weight, tote units, cubic meters, etc.
Speed profile - definition of how fast or slow a vehicle is driving during specific hours.
Finalise time - if automatic finalisation is turned on for the depot, this time indicates when the finalisation process needs to end for any vehicle trips that are scheduled the next day.
3. Shifts
Shift - a designated period of time during which both a vehicle and a driver are assigned to carry delivery or service tasks. In the system, a shift details the timings and break requirements for a trip.
Shift pattern - a mechanism to group and more efficiently manage similar shifts.
Loading time - time spent to load the vehicle.
Max drive time - the longest drive duration after which a driver must have a break.
Max duty time - the longest work duration after which a driver must have a break.
Min duty time - the shortest work duration that the driver must work before taking a break.
4. Schedules
Schedule - a plan for deliveries (or service tasks) for a specific depot and a day. It includes a list of trips, unscheduled orders, and other relevant metadata.
Trip - contains all activities planned for a specific vehicle and a shift. It has a pre-defined starting location, optional ending location and observes all restrictions that are related to orders, shift and vehicle. A trip can have reload and/or break assigned.
Activity - different types of activities: orders, loading, reloading, breaks, return to a depot (arrival).
Break - when turned on, breaks are automatically inserted into trips to ensure compliance and the most optimal schedule.
Reload - the vehicle being routed back to the depot during its trip to add (or remove) additional items. A reload can be used as a break.
Trip status - trips can have different statuses (one at a time) which reflect the stage of planning and the actions to be done during the trip. Trip statutes include draft, prefinal, final, or frozen.
Draft trip status - mostly used for trips which are still being planned and modified. Draft future trips are continuously being optimised, new orders can be added and shift configurations changed. In the draft state, optimisation minimises the total drive duration.
Prefinal trip status - this is a step of trip finalisation during which optimisation tries to find more efficient trips based on a different objective - minimising used shift duration or drive distance. Prefinal state lasts for a limited time and is a pre-state for final status. It can be skipped.
Frozen trip status - freezing a trip pins its existing orders to prevent optimisation placing them elsewhere. Frozen trips can accept new orders. Existing orders can also be shuffled around within the same trip as much as the order time slots allow.
Final trip status - the trip is fully formed and no changes will be allowed.
Finalisation - a process that changes the optimisation objective from minimising drive duration to minimising used duration or drive distance. When it starts, the trip status changes to ‘Prefinal’ and when it finishes to 'Final’. The finalisation process can happen automatically at set times. It can also be triggered manually via the Schedule page or programmatically via API. It can be made as short or as long as needed or skipped all together.
Shift duration - sum of time of configured shifts.
Loading duration - sum of time estimated for loading orders to vehicles at depot.
Drive duration - sum of time estimated for travelling between stops: depot and order locations.
Service duration - sum of time estimated at-door to deliver orders. Each order can have the same or a unique service time.
Idle duration - sum of time spent (estimated) waiting until the time slot of the next delivery opens up.
Used duration - sum of loading, drive, service, idle, reloading, break durations. This represents the used part of shift duration.
Unused duration - remaining shift duration which is not being used.
5. Orders
Order - a request to deliver an item or a service to a specified location during a specified time slot. The system supports four types of orders: drop-off, pick-up, both (pick-up & drop-off), and service. An order can have multiple visits/stops at the same or different locations. In slots API, an order is called a reservation.
Drop-off - the order should be loaded to the vehicle in the depot at the start of the trip and removed from the vehicle at a delivery location.
Pick-up - the order should be loaded to the vehicle at a delivery location and returned to the depot at the end of the trip.
Pick-up & drop-off, or exchange order – this shares characteristics of both types of orders: an item is loaded in the depot and removed at a delivery location. After that, another item is picked up at the same delivery location to be returned to the depot.
Service - an order which does not take any space in the vehicle, but requires a vehicle going to a location to fulfil a task, for example for maintenance of equipment or to measure the site, etc.
Time slot - a specific time window during which delivery will be fulfilled at a specified location. For example, a time slot could be a two-hour window between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM. In the system, a time slot is configurable and can be of any length, as long as it starts and ends within the same day.
Service time - the time needed to serve an order when the vehicle has arrived at the specific location. It’s also known as ‘time at door’. It can be uniquely specified for each order.
ETA (estimated time of arrival) - the calculated time when the order is expected to be delivered to the specified location.
Flag - free text tag assigned for shifts and orders to match one another. An order with a flag would only be assigned to a trip that has the same flag.
Priority - a number assigned to an order to indicate its importance for scheduling. The higher the value, the more likely an order will be scheduled into a trip. If there is insufficient space for all orders to be placed into trips, those orders with lowest priority points will be unscheduled.
Scheduled order - an order which is placed into a trip.
Unscheduled order - an order which needs fulfilling but cannot fit into a trip because of an unavailable time slot, limited vehicle capacity or other reasons.
Cancelled order - an order which no longer needs fulfilling and is not added to the schedule. Cancelled orders can be rescheduled.