Dispatching

This is the last in a series of that overviews the tools and issues that are tied to Scheduling, Routing and Dispatch.

• Scheduling is deciding when the work is to be done.

• Routing is the order the work is to be completed.

• Dispatch is who does the work

Before we look at dispatching, let’s briefly review scheduling and routing.

Scheduling is when work is to be completed and is highly repetitive and detailed. It’s objective is to make sure that commitments which have been made can be kept.

Routing is the order that the work is to be completed. The idea is to set the order of work so that travel time between jobs is kept to a minimum and all the players are at the job at the same time.

Dispatching

The objective of dispatching is to actually get the work done. This is not simple work. It requires keeping track of many different resources within your company. To mention a few:

• Trucks

• Repair status

• Employee vacations

• Jobs that need to be completed

• All scheduled work for the future

• Maintenance work

• Equipment availability

• Etc.

And the list goes on. Not a simple job. What kind of people are successful at being a dispatcher? Clearly, these are people who can deal with STRESS, have a good memory, like an organized life, are quiet spoken and do not easily loss their temper. He or she would make a great life partner, except they are used to getting their way all the time!.

In many successful companies, this job is done by a single person who tells their co-workers what they need to every day. So what tools does a good dispatcher use to help in this job? First and foremost, this requires good communication between drivers and trucks, between office and customer, and between people in the office. Second, the use of organizational tools like marker-boards, printed lists and clip boards are useful. These items keep other people informed on how they have decided to use company resources to meet the work requirements for that day. It always amazes me what an individual can do if they want to. Even so, there comes a time when even the motivated individual cannot handle the load and expands to using other tools so that a company is:

• Not dependent on a single person

• Maintains customer service quality

• Keeps equipment utilization high

• Keeps productivity high

The step to change how dispatch is handled usually determines how a company will grow. If they stay with the existing dispatching methods, the volume of business is throttled by how the jobs are dispatched and the company, no matter how well run, will stay about the same size. The efforts to change how a company handles dispatching usually follows a series of steps as the company grows.

First step is to assign a full time person to handling dispatch. The owner operator picks the most independent driver, the best person, and brings them into the office to take up the responsibilities of dispatching. Now there are two people doing dispatch, with the owner operator continuing to do this part-time. Step two is the use of tools to expand the ability of the dispatcher. Tools like computers that run word processors and spread sheet programs keep work lists up to date and make them easily reproducible so they can be shared and reduce the clerical effort. Step three is using computer programs specifically designed for handling dispatching or that combine dispatching and receivables to minimize duplicate data entry. The fourth and final step is the use of computer systems which have the ability to actually combine the scheduling, routing and dispatch operations to help in the selection of routes, drivers and scheduled dates

More recently, technology is changing and it is now possible to install a satellite tracking system for under $500.00 per vehicle and a one time capital cost of under $5000. This system allows you to track the location of your trucks on a computer map of the streets in your area. This feature is now more available to mid-sized companies where in the past the $50,000-plus first time cost limited its use to the larger firms.

Dispatching, if you take a minute to think about it, it is no small task. In many ways it is more an art then a science. It requires a tremendous effort and intuitive insight to accomplish.

Here is a review of some of the tools we have discussed to handle scheduling, routing and dispatching:

One of the messages from this list of tools is that there is no "Silver Bullet", no single tool that does it all. The tools range from better use of individual abilities, i.e., good memory and writing skills in which you depend upon only you, to using tools, i.e., computer programs that you have to learn before you can use them. A good question is, do you have to go through each tool in sequence, or can you skip some steps and go to automated solutions? The only thing that is clear is that dispatch is an integral part of your business, and as your company grows, computer-assisted or computer-controlled dispatching will be an essential tool which enables that growth.