HK DATACREST

Logistics

Planning 40 vans around windows, loads and hours, every morning.

A regional distributor in the Dallas–Fort Worth area running about 40 vans and trucks from two depots, delivering to around 600 business customers a week, typically plans tomorrow's routes each afternoon in a spreadsheet, with two senior dispatchers holding the rules in their heads.

Industry
Logistics
Solutions
Plan the shortest delivery routes · Put all your numbers in one place
Engagement
Pilot, then build and run

The challenge

The plan works, as long as the same two people are in the building.

Vans leave part empty, some routes run past drivers' hours, and a late order or a sick driver means an hour of phone calls. Customers have stopped trusting ETAs, and planning knowledge sits with two people.

The approach

How it works.

  1. Capture the real rules

    Delivery windows, vehicle capacity by weight and volume, hours-of-service limits and depot cut-offs are written down with the dispatchers, including the unwritten ones.

  2. Replay the past

    The planner runs on a few weeks of historical orders, so its routes can be compared stop by stop with what the vans actually drove.

  3. Plan and adjust

    Dispatchers get a daily plan they can adjust by hand, seeing miles, load and hours change as they move a stop.

  4. Dispatch

    Approved routes go to drivers' phones and to the order system, with ETAs for customers.

The solution

What gets built.

The solution is our route planner, configured with the depots, fleet and rules: a map of the day's routes, load and hours per vehicle, the next stops with windows and ETAs, and a one-click replan when orders change.

Route planner for a distribution depot in the Dallas–Fort Worth area: routes drawn on a road map, each with load, miles and shift time, and the next stops for one van.

Outcomes

What it delivers.

  • Every route within the rules windows, load limits and hours of service respected by design.
  • Changes absorbed in minutes instead of an afternoon of calls.
  • Planning that does not depend on two people because the rules live in the system.
  • Miles, load and hours visible daily so the operation can be managed by numbers.

Technology

Typical stack for this.

  • Python
  • Route optimisation solver
  • OpenStreetMap road data
  • FastAPI
  • React
  • AWS
  • or whatever you already run

Related solutions

All use cases

Plan the shortest delivery routes

Daily routes that respect windows, capacity and hours.

Put all your numbers in one place

Pipelines, data checks and dashboards.

Start with a conversation

Tell us what's slowing your operation down.

A 30-minute call with the people who would build it. You leave knowing whether a pilot makes sense, and what it would cover.