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Express Delivery



This week seems to be starting off with a theme for me ... the idea and requirements of Express Delivery in last mile.

Last mile is a challenging space. You are making direct deliveries to a customer. These are typically the least efficient deliveries that you can make, because an individual order size most likely will be challenge with respect to the operating costs to perform the activity.

The discussions I have seen recently seem to be providing people with a bit of a false sense of security (in my opinion).

We live in an age of data and technology, where the smallest operations can replicate what used to only be achievable by the biggest companies.

This is a double edged sword however in the face of rising expectations.

Everyone thinks about Amazon, and how they are 'easily' able to deliver on their service experience, but even Amazon has been careful and slowly approaching express / same day delivery.

Walmart has been in the news recently as they launched their 2 hour express serivce. Here is a post I shared on LinkedIn:


It is a good example of innovation, but at the same time, demonstrates gaps that most people don't understand very well right now.

The typical things that have A LOT of years of use:
  • The time slot
  • The number of orders assigned to that time slot
  • The vehicles and vehicle types available
  • The distance of routes between stores and the delivery address
Something a little bit more recent:
  • Likely delays as a result of heavy precipitation, like sleet, snow, or hail
What's missing:
  • The variability in delivery time

Why do you think that Amazon, UPS, FedEX, Post Offices drop and go with their deliveries?

Speed of delivery AND consistent delivery time.

If you are planning and optimizing delivery routes, the most important thing to manage is your delivery time. The delivery time directly impacts how many deliveries can be made in a day / shift. Longer deliveries mean less overall deliveries can be made.

With a service like Walmart's Express Delivery, they have also added the constraint / promise of the delivery window. This is another major variable that impacts route construction as well as delivery capacity.

I know from experience just how important it is to know your delivery time when building a delivery network that also has to hit specific delivery windows. It's tough because unplanned time directly impacts the next delivery. If you promise multiple customers a delivery between 10AM and 12PM, and your plan to execute the promise is based on a 10 minute average delivery (I am being very generic and high level to make my point), a delivery all of a sudden taking 30 minutes directly impacts the activity that follows.

True, you also will have deliveries that you planned more time for that take less, will these perfectly balance out over the same time slot promise? Maybe. Probably not however.


Concluding Thoughts:

My point is not to put down express delivery, it is something that is here and will continue to grow. Organizations will get better at it, and there will no doubt be even more tools and data available. My point is that understanding what data is needed, what factors can influence and impact your execution and having the right people and team in place to manage this is paramount to drive a customer experience that will wow those that order from you.
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