There was an old thread on this and I was wondering if anyone was still around that knew about it. I just started this job and they want me to do routing here in Iowa. I have figured a few things out. I am looking for ways to better adjust the optimizer so there will be less time spent adjusting the route when optimizer finishes. Here they had all the techs listed in one city per region, I changed it to be better spread across each region, that helped alot. Also Siebel has a place to put email addresses for techs, is Siebel capable of emailing the individual routes to each of the techs? Any help, tips, or tricks would be greatly appriciated.
I have been on the other end of those routes...........not fun & not efficient for tech or customer. This may help.
The term route is a cable company idea. The customers are connected by poles and wire. The tech just follows the cable route. DTV is different.
Consider the area in terms of obstacles like rivers and highways. Are there places close to other places but blocked? Does city traffic make movement impossible at certain times?
Pre calling......should be done by the tech. An answering machine that gives six customers the same ETA is worthless.
I have had "routes" with four hours of driving built into them........and the exact duration for each job cannot be known. Departure time from the office cannot be predicted either but, for sure, if the tech is waiting for WOs and or equipment at 11:00AM some AM jobs will be missed.
Routing the tech remotely....faxing their jobs the night before and making it possible to collect equipment at all times might help. Having everyone in line at sun up doesn't work.
Positioning the tech so he is at a customer door at 8AM could be a goal. Let the dispatchers dispatch as the day goes on.
Just some insights.
Joe