Optimize Routes Continuously
The continuous improvement routing plan option optimizes resource routes continuously when new activities are added to the bucket, when there’s an opportunity to assign activities to existing routes, or when an existing activity is in jeopardy. You can use the Continuous Improvement option instead of schedule-based routing runs, to get a new level of "just here, just now" optimization.
- Re-optimization starts only if routing can assign more activities or optimize routes in some way.
- You can’t have more than one continuous improvement plan per routing profile at the same time. It isn't a best practice to run other types of routing (except Immediate Routing for Urgent activities) while continuous improvement routing is active.
- For continuous improvement routing runs, the values for interval between runs in minutes, total runtime, and SLR time distribution are defined automatically.
- Some parameters are not available in continuous improvement runs, including:
- Dynamic Routing
- Try to schedule activities to service window start
Continuous improvement runs always accept results automatically; you cannot define acceptance criteria.
Continuous improvement runs may resolve excessive overtime assignments if overtime is limited or prohibited in the routing plan. Activities in overtime are shown as in jeopardy with warnings across the application.
Continuous improvement combines the speed of Immediate Routing with the optimization level of Bulk Routing. If an activity is in jeopardy, the continuous improvement plan may reschedule it and return it to normal.
If you manually move an activity during a long Bulk Routing run, a continuous improvement plan may resolve conflicts automatically.
Pre-assigned activities with a Do Not Assign priority are now eligible for re-optimization. When re-optimization is enabled, these activities may be returned to the bucket or unscheduled if needed.
How it works
The continuous improvement run starts when certain conditions are met for the bucket. For example, when new activities are added, activities are canceled, or activities become jeopardized. If routing can’t improve the situation at the first attempt, no further runs occur until another condition is met.
If Immediate Routing runs are scheduled at the same time, they run first, followed by continuous improvement. Other bulk routing plans (manual, recurrent, once a day) do not pause continuous improvement; instead, continuous improvement may start to handle activities created after the bulk run began.
Use Case
Let's say a company works with fitness equipment. Many activities for today are created from an ERP application at about 06:00, while mobile workers start their work typically at 07:00. Intraday activities are created at the rate of about 20 per hour from 07:00 to 16:00 and must be assigned immediately such that it optimizes travel, due to high gas prices. A very small number of urgent activities must be routed immediately with no optimization, as the only criterion is the time to complete. All the activities left in the bucket or on routes at 18:00 must be moved to the next day.
- Morning Routine: Once a Day routing plan at 06:05 to route all the activities to all mobile workers.
- Urgent Routing: Immediate routing plan for Urgent activities from 07:00 to 16:30.
- Intraday Routing: Continuous improvement routing plan from 07:00 to 16:30, with a filter that doesn't reorder Urgent activities and with the 'Minimize Total Travel' goal selected.
- Evening Routine: Once a Day multiday routing plan (2 days from today) at 17:00 to route activities from today to tomorrow.
- Manual Routing: A special routing plan to re-route activities manually, if needed.