In a project for ‘local-for-local’ food logistics, Zenit researched suitable software for route optimization to plan the fastest routes for delivery vans in order to reduce food miles and costs. A driver would open an application on his phone to see today’s deliveries and as soon as he starts his day, he would be directed to Google Maps with the optimal route already loaded on his screen.
The knowledge and technical experience that was gained in this project was later applicable in very different situation, but with the same need for route calculation. A medium-sized healthcare institution, for which Zenit services a variety of data and BI solutions, had a productivity issue within ambulatory care. Caretakers would make a complex week planning to visit customers at home. These caretakers would end up spending up to 25% of their worktime in their car and many of them saw proper planning as an administrative burden.
By gathering data from the healthcare management and the HR, enough variables (care plans, addresses, timetables etc.) could be fed to the route optimization engine to come up with the optimal week planning. As caretakers opened their calendar at the beginning of the week, the optimal appointments would already be filled in from the data provided by the route optimization engine.
This meant a productivity increase for caretakers of up to 20%, because of decrease in travel time and administrative burden. It also meant caretakers would more easily follow the obligations set out by municipalities and health insurances companies, because clients got exactly the amount of care set out in the care plans.
For us, this was an extremely rewarding project and a wonderful way to prove that innovations can be used in multiple domains.
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