What is Dispatch Management? Key Components, Best Practices, Challenges

If your business involves deliveries of any kind, you need to have a process to prioritize, delegate, and track deliveries with total transparency.

You also need to manage multiple drivers and routes to meet on-time delivery. Usually, small companies manage this process manually with a single person. However, large companies require a team to handle the process. You can’t just approach it haphazardly! That’s where dispatch management comes into the picture.

But is dispatch management worth a shot? Yes, you can reduce the probability of missing deadlines and improve operational efficiency by preventing delivery bottlenecks.

It can help drivers save time and even lower the chances of lost or misplaced packages. That said, an ideal dispatch management system simplifies your entire supply chain operation.

Read this blog to understand why it matters, and how to handle it with the right tech tools — like FarEye Technologies.

Dispatch management is a multi-step process of organizing, assigning, and monitoring deliveries with ease.

Let’s take an example of an e-commerce organization using dispatch management to meet customer goals. Suppose you place an emergency order, a dispatcher will respond to your request in real time. They will alert the nearest team in your area, and direct them to your address for delivery.

Irrespective of the goods you’re dispatching, you always plan for an accurate and efficient route and track them. Dispatch management is your key to doing that with ease.

• Easy Resource Planning: If you’re running a logistics business, you need to efficiently allocate resources and in a very organized manner. Only then you can meet on-time customer demands. Dispatch management helps you organize that with minimum resources to save your time, and expenditure.
• Save Cost: By learning dispatch management, you learn how to allocate resources and plan your routes to save fuel and time for your drivers with every delivery. This saves you a huge cost at the month's end.
• Happy Customers: When you properly plan everything properly to provide goods to customers at the right time (or before time), you hit the golden buzzer. Afterall, no customer would hesitate to rate you 5 stars for receiving packages on time.
• Ensures Safety: Dispatch management is not just for on-time deliveries. It ensures all drivers comply with safety regulations and industry standards, as per the requirement.
• Critical Decision-Making: Not every time things go as per your plan in the logistics business. Sometimes, any unpredictable traffic scene can force the management to plan the next best route quickly. This needs critical thinking. And, dispatch management prepares you for such critical thinking moments.

Once your entire team understands why dispatch management is important, they find it interesting to learn and apply the techniques in their operations. Now, let’s understand the different key components of dispatch management.

Here are the key components of a dispatch management plan that make your operation highly organized for success.

Dispatch Planning

When you plan for a dispatch, you check for three things for completing the task: customer orders, proposed deadlines, and available resources.

An ideal dispatch management software, like FarEye, you can manage all these things without any manual effort.

You can easily plan the priority of order deliveries and the best engagement of available manpower and vehicles from a simple dashboard.

Routing and Scheduling

Apart from managing multiple drivers and routes, you also need to aim for customer satisfaction. Customers feel happy when they get goods on time.

Dispatch management helps you find the best and shortest path to make a delivery on time. This helps your drivers save time and focus on safe driving rather than looking to maps for route optimization.

Vehicle and Driver Management

You would always want your drivers to follow optimal routes without any crisscrossing.

Good dispatch management can help you plan the order of driver deliveries as per their current locations. This can help them complete all deliveries in that location before moving on to the next.

If you have multiple drivers for different parts of the city, you can set them for different zones from the tool. They can get the update automatically without any manual followups.

Communication and Tracking

Dispatch management makes communication amongst dispatchers streamlined and more efficient. It also helps improve communication between dispatchers and drivers to resolve any problems in the route.

Data Analysis and Reporting

• Dispatch management eases the collection, organisation and analysis of data on dispatch operations.

• Analysis can help with identifying areas of improvement, trends which show strengths of the logistics companies and opportunities for cost-saving.

Now that we have learnt about the key components of Dispatch management, let us look into some of the best practices which help in planning and executing dispatch operations.

Let’s understand the best practices in dispatch management to achieve the best out of the dispatch processes.

We have listed some of the best practices that help our clients streamline operations and achieve their goals with efficiency and accuracy.

Efficient Routing and Scheduling

When you use an ideal dispatch management software like FarEye, it helps map the best routes possible for drivers to follow and avoid traffic for on-time delivery. It also helps you schedule the order of execution to be able to promise customer an ETA for their delivery.

Real-time Tracking

Dispatch management software like FarEye uses GPS tracking systems so that you and your customers can get real-time data on the order status. Plus, FarEye offers data analytics to monitor vehicle location and driver behaviour to predict the estimated time of dispatch and delivery.

Data Analysis and Optimisation

An ideal dispatch management software can also collect and analyse data from previous operations to find areas of improvement. If you learn how to do that you can create better routes and schedules customised to your company performance.
 

Technology plays an important role in bringing efficiency and accuracy into dispatch management. Here are some technological advancements that have made Dispatch management what it is today.

Dispatch Management Software

An advanced dispatch management tool can handle the entire responsibility of planning efficient dispatch operations for your company with minimum manual efforts. FarEye is one such pioneer in this field. We make dispatching smoother and more organised with our advanced dispatch management software.

Telematics and GPS Tracking Systems

Modern Dispatch management tools use GPS tracking technology and telematics to keep dispatchers and customers up to date with the status of each delivery. We all know how GPS works. Here, telematics help monitor the quality and condition of the delivery and services while they are on their way to the customer.

IoT and Sensors

Nowadays, the Internet of Things is also being introduced in dispatch management systems to track temperature, humidity and other environmental conditions to ensure that routing and scheduling go according to the dispatch plan. The technology makes use of sensors to check that the product being delivered does not get spoiled in the travel with the changing environment and weather.

Artificial Intelligence

Dispatch management systems like FarEye use Artificial intelligence to predict weather, schedules, traffic patterns and maintenance needs by data analysis. There is also the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to plan for the most productive and cost-efficient dispatch operations without manual efforts.

Traffic and Weather

Despite using modern tech and smart strategies, traffic and bad weather can mess up routes and delivery times. Dispatchers need backup plans with alternative routes and flexible schedules to tackle these unexpected issues.

Customer Expectations

Even if things arrive on time, customers might not be happy with the quality. Dispatch management can ensure timely delivery and good services, but for customers to be satisfied, they need real-time tracking options and clear communication about when to expect their delivery.

Vehicle Breakdowns and Delays

Sometimes, even if vehicles get regular checks, they might break down and cause delays. Regular maintenance and monitoring of drivers can help reduce breakdown chances. Breakdowns lead to late deliveries and upset customers.

Complying with Regulations

Dispatches must make sure drivers follow safety, service hours, transport, and environmental rules. If not, there can be penalties, which not only affect the organisation's reputation but also create problems in dispatch operations.

FarEye Dispatch Management software makes dispatch operations productive with advanced solutions.

Some of the features that FarEye offers make it a pioneer in the field.

Efficient Dispatch Planning

Our software is perfect for organizations who simply want to plan and run the most efficient delivery routes. We offer a user-friendly interface that helps you streamline the entire logistic even from a single dashboard.

Better Routing and Scheduling

No need to plan driver routes with maps and whiteboards. Simply upload a digital document with basic delivery data and a list of drivers, and the tool will provide you the fastest routes for each driver. The software automatically reschedules or recalculates routes in case of any change plan or traffic emergency.

Data-Driven Insights

Dispatch management is a data-driven job. FarEye dispatch management tool provides real-time data about each driver’s progress in their route so you can check everything is going on track. As you plan the entire task with real-time data, there is hardly any window left for manual error or slow decisions.