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A utomation and optimisation are common terms of professional daily life. Critical KPIs involve time savings and cost reduction. In companies that operate a field service business model, said efficiency parameters will always play a big role and catch the attention of route planning software.

The type of work order is generally irrelevant. Any industry that covers long distances and service regions strives for efficiency. According to the well-known physics formula 'work = force x distance'. Does this mean that shorter distances and less effort simplify or even improve the work? A route planning platform is supposed to fix this, but is a route planning tool worthwhile for every business? And is your business ready?

ROUTE PLANNING SOFTWARE: A SIMPLE SUPPLEMENT OR A DECISIVE WORK TOOL?

When do you make the decision? Every user of our route planning software is as individual as their business case. While some focus on a manual work planning approach and use a route planning tool as a supplement, others are interested in a fully automated, system-controlled route plan. This gives the ability to take on other tasks (gaining time). Ultimately, both approaches have one thing in common; the software is used at regular intervals throughout the working day. Surely, a software such as FLS VISITOUR can be rated as a decisive work tool.

How do you recognise planning sceptics in your organisation? Is it argued that planning models are relatively static? For approaches in a software environment such as Microsoft Excel, this is absolutely true and their view of a merely useful facilitation is absolutely understandable. Route planning software stands out precisely at this point. Real-time data transfer ensures that short-term cancellations, appointments and general changes such as cancellations are immediately taken into account. With a real-time tracking feature, a tracking procedure can be used to plan precisely right up to the destination address, in addition to an actual arrival time. Excel is no match.

WHICH ISSUES DETERMINE WHETHER A ROUTE PLANNING SOFTWARE IS REALLY WORTH USING?

Deciding whether route planning software is worthwhile does not depend on the industry or the size of the company, as is often assumed. In addition to the field service, all company units that drive several miles a day benefit from a system of this kind. Service technicians, engineers, construction companies, and field sales units are field staff.

The rule of thumb is a service area of around 100 existing customers. What is relevant here is that a fleet unit drives to at least four of these customers every day. If both factors fluctuate greatly, a route planning software is worthwhile from a total daily driving time of at least two hours.

Regardless of the entry points, it's the right time to adopt route planning software when you're required to optimise the following areas:

• Kilometer/miles vs CO2 savings
• Time saving (travel time + planning time)
• Cost saving
• Dynamics of work tasks vs skills
• Employee utilisation / employee satisfaction
• Customer satisfaction

It becomes obvious that even young companies and start-ups can benefit from route planning software. Results of intelligently balancing employee skills, (a system determines the optimal scenario to serve all customers in a service-oriented manner) means not overloading employees, building in breaks, and returning to home/base on time.