La logística última milla es un negocio de céntimos y segundos, cada céntimo cuenta, cada segundo importa. Hacer la vida de tu repartidor más ágil, sencilla y eficiente tendrá un impacto más importante del que quizás seas consciente.

Seguramente estés buscando una app, y sólo de pensar que tendrás que explicarles a todos los repartidores como instalar, si funcionará en sus teléfonos, sobre todo el de los repartidores externos que cada día cambian, entre muchos otros problemas… pensarás que el papel no es tan mala solución.

Quizás haya otras alternativas que no sean una app que requiera instalación, que serán aun más rápidas y convenientes que entregar un papel. Vamos a ver las grandes diferencias entre una App nativa, una webapp y por último el papel.

En cualquier cambio, es importante identificar los principales aspectos que marcarán el éxito del cambio. En la adopción de una solución digital para repartidores es importante reflexionar sobre 3 aspectos:

• La instalación de la herramienta
• La formación de la herramienta
• La adopción de la herramienta.

Instalación de la herramienta

Antes de decidirse por una herramienta es importante estudiar bien el proceso de instalación de la herramienta elegida. Una app nativa requerirá de conocimientos por parte del usuario en la instalación de apps. Navegar por las diferentes stores de apps, hasta encontrar la correcta. Por último compartir con el usuario sus credenciales (usuario y password) para poder acceder a su cuenta. Este proceso se deberá repetir con todos los repartidores, y seguramente tengas una alta rotación, por lo que será un proceso que se deberá hacer de forma habitual.

La webapp de Routal permite agilizar todo este proceso con el simple acceso a un link enviado por correo electrónico, WhatsApp o cualquier otro medio. Es un sistema muy sencillo y conveniente, especialmente en empresas que trabajan con servicios tercerizados para sus operaciones y estos pueden cambiar diariamente.

Además, uno de los riesgos de las Apps nativas es el soporte en los diferentes modelos. En el mercado existen más de 24.000 modelos diferentes y es virtualmente imposible dar soporte para todos ellos. Por el contrario, una webapp como la de Routal, está basada en código estándard HTML soportado por todos los dispositivos en su navegador nativo. No hay nada peor que escuchar a un repartidor decir, en mi móvil no funciona.

Formación

La formación es un paso clave para el uso de cualquier herramienta. En general, todas las herramientas de movilidad suelen ser fáciles de usar por parte de los trabajadores de campo, repartidores o cualquier empleado.

En este video podrás ver como de sencillo es la aplicación de Routal. Nuestros clientes no tardan más de 3 minutos en enseñar como funciona a sus repartidores.

Adopción

La adopción de las herramientas es la tarea más difícil en cualquier empresa. Cambiar el status quo (La forma habitual de trabajar de la compañía) puede ser un gran reto. Para tener éxito en este tipo de proyectos, hay un secreto: Generar más conveniencia a los usuarios con el nuevo proceso.

La aplicación debe ahorrar tiempo, ser más sencilla que la solución actual y sobre todo debe hacerle la vida fácil al trabajador.

Por ejemplo, en la webapp de Routal, dispones de un botón de acceso directo a Google Maps o Waze que rellenará la dirección y guiará al repartidor hasta el punto de entrega en un sólo click. Ahorrando unos segundos de copiar la dirección, con los posibles errores que pueda cometer.

Una de las tareas que más hacen los repartidores es atender el teléfono. Realizar llamadas a clientes, recibir llamadas de su responsable para conocer el estado de las entregas, y un largo etc. Poder ahorrar 30 segundos copiando el número de teléfono de un cliente, puede parecer insignificante, pero si esa tarea se repite decenas de veces a lo largo del día, podemos estar hablando de ahorros de más de 20-30 minutos. Tiempo que se puede dedicar a realizar más entregas, o evitar un accidente.

Otra de las ventajas de la digitalización es el poder compartir información en tiempo real de forma asíncrona. Por ejemplo, el estado de las entregas, o las propias fotografías permiten a clientes y responsables estar al corriente del estado de su entrega y todo lo sucedido en el momento que lo necesitan. Sin molestar, o tener que estar a la espera. Información en tiempo real, mejores decisiones y servicio más conveniente.

Como conclusión, una herramienta sencilla, que mejore el rendimiento de los repartidores y sea más conveniente que la solución actual son las claves para lograr el éxito de un proyecto de monitorización del reparto.

Te animo a probar nuestra solución Routal Planner de optimización de rutas, monitorización del reparto mediante webapp y la comunicación en tiempo real a tu cliente.

La expectation of a customer versus a service is based on their previous experience and the promise they made to them at the time of purchase. Managing that previous (not necessarily good) experience with the promise of service will mark the success of the service.

Trust is based on complying with the agreement we make with our client. For example, Koiki and its sustainable commitment. Building a trusted service can take years of hard work. Losing that trust, on the other hand, can only mean a bad response from one of our collaborators.

In the world of last mile deliveries, customer expectations are based primarily on these 4 points:

1. Delivery time: Customers usually expect their order to be delivered within the agreed time frame. If the order is not delivered in the expected time, the customer may be frustrated.
2. Product status: Customers expect the product to be in good condition upon delivery. If the product is damaged or in poor condition, the customer may feel dissatisfied.
3. Deliveryman's treatment: Customers expect friendly and professional treatment from the delivery person. If the delivery person is rude or unfriendly, the customer may feel upset.
4. Ease of tracking: Customers often expect to be able to track the progress of their order and know their location at all times. If there isn't an easy way to do this, the customer may feel worried or uncomfortable.

Expectation: “Delivery in a timely manner”

For every logistician, that's the goal. Deliver at the agreed time (not earlier and certainly not later) and in the right way. The forms, in many cases, are almost more important. They mean the image of the brand, the relationship with the customer, the condition of the product that you have taken care of throughout the trip. Details, which may seem insignificant, although in many cases they make a difference, and on many occasions the customer is willing to pay for it.

The problem is when the expectation is not met, it can generate frustration in the individual. Frustration is a negative emotion that occurs when a goal is not achieved or when obstacles are found to achieve it. Putting ourselves in the shoes of our customer can help us identify areas for improvement in our service.

Some potential causes of customer frustration include:

1. Lack of control: When someone has no control over the outcome of a situation, they may feel frustrated. For example, if a customer expects their order to be delivered within a certain time frame and it doesn't arrive on time, they may be frustrated that they don't have control over the delivery process.
2. Lack of information: A lack of information or clarity in instructions can lead to frustration. For example, if a customer doesn't know when their order will arrive or how to track the progress of their delivery, they may be frustrated.
3. Lack of support: When someone doesn't receive the necessary support to achieve a goal, they may feel frustrated. For example, if a customer expects to receive care and help from the delivery person and doesn't receive it, they may be frustrated.

For this reason, it is essential to have tools that allow us to properly manage customer expectations. Having control over operations at all times allows us to know if service commitments with the customer are being met. Sharing this information with the customer allows the customer to adapt to a problem. There's no worse feeling than waiting for someone without knowing when they'll arrive. It can be 5 minutes, or 5 hours. This ignorance generates anxiety and in a hyperconnected society it generates a poor customer experience.

If you feel that your operations can improve and that your customers often have the perception that the service they receive is not very good, and you are willing to lead the change in your organization, we recommend that you try Routal Planner. This tool helps companies like yours to offer a more convenient service, save time and logistics costs while empowering customers with information. ¡Take a look here and see for yourself!

The logistics industry is constantly changing, both in processes and in the way of proceeding. These changes are due, to a large extent, to technological advances in the sector, which evoke different modalities in logistics processes, such as reverse logistics.

What is Reverse Logistics?

Reverse logistics is the set of practices and processes responsible for managing the returns and returns of those products purchased by users.

These returns or returns are managed from the points of sale of the products to the manufacturer itself (to carry out the repair, recycling or disposal of the product at the lowest possible cost).

In addition, reverse logistics is already another process and of vital importance when planning the supply chain for the satisfaction of the end customer.

Reverse logistics is one of the main challenges faced by the industry and the main objective is to avoid high costs and manage returns in the shortest possible time.

8 tips to improve your reverse logistics

Customer Centric: It responds to the customer-oriented strategy through which an organization places the customer at the center of the company with the objective of focusing all processes and operations on users.

The implementation of the Customer Centric strategy increases the satisfaction of our users, since we focus all our efforts on knowing their needs and concerns regarding our activity. Knowing the desired delivery and return times or a maximum price per service will help increase your satisfaction and, therefore, carry out a satisfactory reverse logistics process.

Strategic Planning: Perform measured and analytical planning to ensure the correct management of operations taking into account parameters such as mileage or travel time. With the right software, this will be an autonomous task, in which a large amount of time is not required and with an optimal result, since it will always offer the most efficient route.

Optimization of resources: The optimization of resources when it comes to transportation is essential for the success of your company's reverse logistics process; it will help control the traceability, trajectory and tracking of shipments. In addition, planning delivery routes efficiently and optimally will result in significant economic and time savings. Therefore, the use of specialized software for route planning will be a key element in increasing the efficiency of your company's reverse logistics process.

Use of metrics and KPIs: To evaluate the productivity and performance of the reverse logistics process, the use of KPIs is essential (Key Performance Indicator). These indicators will help measure and quantify your company's performance and compliance with established objectives. It is recommended that when defining the logistics KPIs, they are developed based on the S.M.A.R.T. (Smart, Mmeasurable, Achivable, Realistic and Time-Bound) model.

Shorter return times: As mentioned before in relation to the Customer Centric strategy, it is essential to know not only the limits of our company in terms of acceptable delivery or return times, but also the “deadlines” or desired deadlines of our customers. For this reason, and in general terms, it should be prioritized that collection and return times are as short as possible and without the need to increase the amount of resources associated with reverse logistics. Thus, specific efforts should be made to improve this particular process.

Proactive monitoring: Proactive monitoring is the live monitoring of the daily planning of services and deliveries that warns of possible failures and errors while allowing us to react and adapt operations in a satisfactory manner.

Good proactive monitoring must have the possibility of monitoring the operation in real time and thus be able to view the progress of the operation live at all times. In addition, and in relation to the real-time monitoring of operations, it is essential that it incorporates sufficient functions that allow a timely reaction to possible failures or errors.

Smart Warehouses or Smart Storage: Smart warehouses are specialized logistics centers that make use of technology to increase efficiency in all their processes, such as the reception, preparation or storage of goods.

An example of the use and benefit of implementing intelligent warehouses in the reverse logistics process is the case of Amazon, a company that has included artificial intelligence in its warehouses in order to quickly determine, based on the costs of each product and its associated return costs, if it accepts to pick up the product in question by activating the reverse logistics process or, on the contrary, makes the refund without the collection of said merchandise.

Logistic software: Investing in technology and digitalization can help you improve your reverse logistics efficiently. Choose specific software that includes route optimization, real-time operational monitoring and analysis of important metrics for your continuous improvement.

If you want to guarantee the success of your company's reverse logistics process, you can do so now with specialized software. Routal Planner. Try it now for free by 10 days.

One of the main fears and brakes faced by SMEs in the face of digitalization is Integrate technology. The dichotomy between choosing an all-encompassing solution, or specific solutions for each problem. The benefit of the first option is that you're dealing with a provider, everything is talked about, and you shouldn't have too many problems. The problem is that it probably doesn't solve your processes in the best way and you have to make a lot of effort to adapt your business to the solution. The other option, small experts, usually provide a better solution for each process, but there is a difficulty in getting applications to talk to each other. This means that two companies collaborate, integrate and that can be a challenge.

More complex systems and technological solutions are increasingly required to optimize operations. The trend of one-fits-all (one solution for everything) is increasingly difficult to find and as companies grow they require more specific solutions, so integration projects are becoming more common, but above all, more necessary.

To give great examples, one of Inditex's great successes has been to have a single centralized stock between warehouses and stores, which allows us to have the status of each of the pieces of clothing in real time and achieve greater success in an omnichannel environment where the customer purchases online, is sent from several centers to be consolidated in the store and for the customer to pick up at the store buying an accessory that he found by chance. But something like that is not only available to large companies, SMEs also have a lot to say, and their scale makes them projects much easier, faster and cheaper to implement.

The benefits of integrating systems are direct improvements in productivity and in the quality of the service they provide, standardized and optimized operating processes, ease in internal processes, reduction of errors and also homogenization of data.

Why is it presented as a brake or challenge, or Why does it bring so many headaches for companies? Mainly because many companies do not have the experience, the resources to develop these projects internally or personnel with the knowledge to lead a project of this type. The solution, outsourcing these projects, and without good advice the project can be a big headache. For this reason, looking for a supplier who knows the business, the tools to be integrated and who has experience in similar projects are the key to success for an integration project to be successful, to develop quickly and on budget.

Unfortunately, sometimes digitalization brings high costs that companies don't want to face because of the doubt if there will really be a return on that investment. Digitalization with common sense, improving and streamlining processes undoubtedly generates great investment returns. For this reason, it is essential that companies have an orchestrator that understands the need of the business, the company's processes and those points that hold back the organization in order to optimize them through digitalization. The partner will actually implement that improvement, but it requires high-level coordination that will be the key to success.

Strategy, knowledge and execution.

Nowadays, execution is the easiest part of all. There are different types of integrations depending on the available systems and the objective. The most used are those of APIS (Application Programming Interface) where data is transmitted from one side to the other quickly and securely. It is the most used since it is simpler to perform and offers great performance. These are used to enter information to our platform. On the other hand, the most used to extract information is integration by Webhooks, in which the external system receives data when there is an event on the platform.

At Routal, we are constantly working to make integrations an opportunity to further streamline company processes, digitize and automate tasks that don't add value, and concentrate the work of employees on those points where a person actually provides the most value.

Quaker State Success Story: Integrating SAP

Quaker State is a leading company in the distribution of oils and lubricants for vehicles in Mexico. In 2020, they needed to standardize their merchandise delivery procedure and homogenize their operations so as not to rely on one or more people for the replacement of personnel. Faced with this situation, they implemented the Routal solution.

Thanks to the Planner intelligent route planner, they were able to unify processes into one, in addition to generating a single procedure that would be available to any worker regardless of their level of training.

Prior to the integration, the delivery routes were carried out manually, they spent hours daily in the planning process, there was little monitoring of the operation, and obtaining any report on performance metrics was an investment of tens of hours, which greatly limited the ability to make improvement decisions.

Once the integration of their SAP system with Routal was implemented, route planning began to be carried out in an automated manner and in minutes. The risk on the figure of the route planner and the dependence on that person was completely reduced. The creation of metric reports was also automated to improve the control and monitoring of their distribution processes, and most importantly: the data were reconciled and validated. Thus, the entire process was standardized and optimized.

”Routal Planner is essential to us. It saves us planning time and makes us more competitive against our competitors” Your Manager has your opinion.

Lácteas del Jarama Success Story: Integrating AS 400

Lácteas del Jarama It is one of the most important dairy companies in Spain, it was the first company to introduce mozzarella in our country and its history supports it as one of the main dairy companies in the food service sector.

The successful implementation of Routal was due to the successful integration of its ERP system, an IBM AS400, an extremely robust but difficult to integrate system. To be able to count on a partner like Nakima helped to be able to carry out the integration in just 3 weeks of work and thus reduce the start-up time to just over a month.

The internal leadership clearly identified the need to eliminate steps in the process that would focus logistics personnel on what really provides value: “Deliver quickly, with the lowest cost and offering the best possible service”.

The experience of working with professionals who are experts in this type of project means that companies can think further and want to improve other processes that seemed impossible to improve.

At Routal, we work to streamline integration processes through partners with a lot of experience in all types of technologies and businesses, achieving success so that projects are successful.

Try Routal for free for 10 days click here.

October begins and BlackFriday is getting closer and closer, it's time to get ready and be ready for its arrival. In this article we want to discuss the challenges faced by e-commerce and the last mile today.

Cumulative sales between BlackFriday and Christmas account for 30% of annual turnover for some e-commerce sectors. That is why it is very important for the sector to be able to know what challenges it will have to face this year.

In recent years, e-commerce has grown steadily, especially with the momentum it gained in 2020 as a result of the covid19 pandemic. Now in 2022 and with another economic context, it seems that this growth is slowing down and is almost stagnant. Specialists anticipate that this year there will be fewer offers, due to the economic context, lack of stock and reduced production.

In this context, new challenges are presented for e-commerce. First, end customers continue to push for speed, flexibility, and convenience. Get everything delivered to your doorstep. However, on the other hand, they also prioritize companies that are more sustainable and reduce their emissions. In any case, many forget about this aspect and the perception of the negative impact on sustainability is reduced compared to the convenience of receiving their order at the time they want. Then there is a dichotomy for logistics companies: to be faster or to be more sustainable. Perhaps the answer is neither of these two options but rather the convenience in delivery.

Second, there is an accessibility problem. In recent years, the Internet has allowed access to e-commerce everywhere, even the most remote, and this pushes distribution to go further and further. But in terms of logistics and especially infrastructure, not so much progress has been made, which is why it is costly and even difficult to reach remote towns and areas, especially in less developed countries.

Thirdly, the post-pandemic era, the modality of free returns for online purchases has become widespread, which presents a Great reverse logistics challenge. Offering free returns also poses a duality since it is not sustainable for packages to travel long distances and then return, wasting fuel and generating costs and emissions. In the future, it should be reviewed if it is convenient to provide a free returns service, if it is necessary to charge it or encourage the customer to approach a physical store to add this reverse logistics, minimizing trips.

Finally, another challenge is to improve the user experience: essential in this era when people place a lot of weight on the opinions of other customers, in addition to their own, and decide to repeat their purchases where they have received the best service. To improve reliability, there are tools such as order tracking, proof of delivery, direct communication with the customer, satisfaction or opinion surveys, among others. Taking care of and improving the user experience throughout the year is possible when you use a logistics service that has these tools, allowing more reliability and transparency for the end customer. The quality of the service is what sets you apart from the competition.

Our main recommendation for this BlackFriday is to anticipate. There is still time left, specific strategies can be planned for this date, not only for marketing and advertising, but also for logistics, to be prepared for increases in demand. In addition, we believe that technology is the main solution to many of the challenges posed in last-mile distribution.

That's why we encourage you to try Routal, a digitalization tool where you can optimize your delivery routes, use the restrictions your operations need, control routes in real time, send direct communications to the customer to keep them informed and reduce failed deliveries, collect proof of delivery, send customer and driver satisfaction surveys, as well as reduce costs and time in your operations. Test Routal free for 10 days by clicking hither.

This year the European Mobility Week is celebrated from September 16 to 22 with the motto “Combine and move!” to place the emphasis on intermodality. The celebration will begin on Friday, September 16 with Park (ing) Day and will end on September 22, World Car Free Day.

The objective of the European Mobility Week is to raise awareness of the need to reduce the use of private motorized vehicles, in order to achieve a less polluted city and also reduce the space usually occupied by these vehicles. As well as promoting more sustainable travel such as public transport, cycling or walking.

As part of this event since Routal we want to tell you how we apply our contribution to the sustainability of the city and how we reduce CO2 emissions when it comes to moving to the office.

Since 2020, Routal has left the employee free choice to work from home or go to the office. Routal currently employs 10 people. The offices in Barcelona are located in the center of the city and are easily accessible by public transport. However, working from home is everyone's favorite option. When we decided to meet at the office, we traveled by bike, scooter, on foot or by subway.

Avoiding the use of private motorized vehicles and working from home has meant savings in emissions of 6,733 kg of CO2 per year (6.7 tons) for Routal.

You can encourage your employees to work from home to avoid large CO2 emissions every year as well as improve work-life balance. Our own CEO (who has just become a father for the second time) is grateful to be able to take his daughter to school every day 😄 and not miss a school party. It's a matter of organization and flexibility, he says.

However, if working from home isn't possible at your company because the type of work doesn't allow it, you can help your employees reduce their emissions. A practical way is to share a vehicle between several. For this purpose you can use Routal to see how your employees could easily and quickly carpool. You just have to enter the addresses of all your employees, adjust the number of vehicles that may be needed, and we take care of planning the most efficient routes for them to share their vehicles. Watch the video:

Try it yourself!

As a company, we are aware of the need to improve the world of our children and that is why we work not only to offer a better service but also to help our customers with their environmental objectives, reducing emissions, improving the quality of their deliveryers' work and offering a more convenient service to their customers.

If you're wondering how we do it, I encourage you to look This other video and you'll see how we can save you hundreds of liters of fuel every month and thousands of hours behind the wheel every year.

You can do your route by trying Routal free for 10 days by clicking here.

Gas, gasoline, gasoline, fuel, there are hundreds of ways to call it depending on where you are. However, the increases in their costs are being reflected around the world. That's why in this article we'll give you tips to save fuel and thus reduce not only costs, but also CO2 emissions from your logistics operations.

Efficient routes 🛣️

If there is something essential for saving gas, it is choosing the most optimal route, traveling as few kilometers as possible through the right area and taking into account variables that may arise, such as road conditions and maximum speed.

Our main advice is to use a route optimization tool (such as Routal 😉) that provides you with the most efficient routes adapted to your operation. The optimizer uses artificial intelligence to define among infinite variables which is the most effective route to complete the route you need in a few minutes, saving you a lot of time compared to doing it manually. You can set restrictions, time windows, weight and volume limitations, and more. This way you will get the most suitable routes and in this way you will increase your productivity and you will save not only fuel, but also costs.

Maintenance 🛠️

Secondly, it is essential to save fuel that the vehicle to be used works properly, so we recommend regular maintenance of your fleet. This includes doing regulatory checks, checking oil and lubricants, and also checking tire pressure whenever possible. These revisions prevent further inconveniences in the future and save money in the event of breakdowns. Vehicle manufacturers establish the recommended period for each revision depending on the model and age of the vehicle, and some are mandatory to maintain the current warranty. We recommend that maintenance be carried out by specialists or trained personnel.

Driving 🚙

Another way to make fuel consumption efficient is the way you drive. Avoiding aggressive driving, trying to maintain a constant speed and respecting speed limits reduce fuel consumption. Safe driving courses are available to improve drivers' way of driving and to keep up to date.

You should also turn off the engine when you are standing still for a long time and try to keep the air conditioner above 21 degrees and below 24 to avoid overspending.

Hybrid or electric vehicle 🔌

Another option to save fuel permanently is to switch to a hybrid (or fully electric) vehicle to reduce emissions and improve efficiency. A hybrid vehicle can save us a lot of fuel, especially if it is used in the city for short routes. In addition, the maintenance of these cars is cheaper. Another benefit is that, due to their rating, they have no traffic restrictions in cities with low emission areas, they have discounts on tolls and also reduced taxes.

The Routal route optimizer includes a limiting kilometer restriction so that when planning your routes you can take into account the range of your electric vehicle.

Despite the increase in the price of fuel, there are different ways to save it, put them to the test and reduce your expenses too. Follow all these tips and also use a route optimizer to improve your operational efficiency and productivity, saving costs and fuel. Try Routal free for 10 days hither.

Do you have other tips for saving fuel? Leave us your comment.

Many educational entities choose to provide a school shuttle service for their students. This service can be performed by themselves or outsourced to personnel transport companies. If you are the logistics manager of a student transport company, you will know that in Spain the Real Decree 443/2001 of April 27 points out that the maximum length of travel by school transport cannot exceed one hour, so it is essential that students spend as little time as possible on transport, and that routes are efficient in terms of costs, time and distance.

They have recently been Published studies which correlate long trips to get to school with worse academic performance. Mainly because of reduced hours of sleep and less exercise to get to school. Sometimes the distance from children's homes to school makes it impossible to walk or ride a bicycle, so reducing travel times as much as possible is a priority.

The best way to plan transportation stops and minimize travel times is to use a route optimizer. An optimizer allows you to plan your routes in minutes, and thus achieve a significant reduction in travel times and even reduce the number of vehicles to be used.

It is also essential to have visibility of your operations, to be able to see in real time where the vehicles are located and obtain reports of the number of canceled stops, with their reasons, number of kilometers traveled, duration, etc.

Although school routes tend to be recurring, day by day there are changes in the number of students who demand the service, either due to a change in extracurricular activities or due to absenteeism. The number or size of vehicles to be used for the route may also vary. That is why it is necessary to suppleness and a platform that is plain easy to use and easy to implement.

3 ways to make school transport management more efficient:

• Optimize routes
• Get real-time information about the operation
• Reduced costs, time and distance

In SmartMonkey we help public transport companies with a quick and practical solution in planning student transport routes. In minutes you will have the route optimized, you will be able to view the operation in real time, inform families continuously, obtain reports on important metrics for your operation.

Its implementation is very fast, you only need the data of your vehicles and the directions of the stops, and the optimizer will suggest the most effective routes for you in just a few minutes.

Let yourself be helped and try Routal free for 10 days at routal.com

Society is constantly evolving and that is nothing new. However, there are changes that transcend much more than others given their relevance and impact on the population. One of these changes that has transformed and even saved lives in the future in recent years is healthcare logistics.

What is healthcare logistics?

Health logistics is the set of logistical and management procedures that provide the necessary health facilities in order to provide the population with health care.

Healthcare logistics encompasses numerous activities and services within the healthcare sector, such as the management and distribution of vaccines, visits by medical teams, patient transport, emergency services, drug distribution, management of biological samples and much more.

The health metamorphosis

As in any other field or sector, healthcare has undergone many changes over the years.

Trends such as home hospitalization, born in the late 80s, is now a preferred option in more and more cases: it is currently consolidating itself as a way of practicing medicine that improves in many aspects, since patients feel more comfortable at home, it is easier to follow up on treatments and, ultimately, satisfaction is greater on both sides.

This is just one example of the resilience of healthcare in general terms. Despite suffering major economic and even health crises such as Covid-19, it manages to persist and adapt to changes, including the digitalization of its logistics.

The digital transformation in healthcare logistics

If there is one field in which digitalization has been key to the development and proper functioning of processes, it is that of the healthcare sector.

The recent inclusion of digital mechanisms in healthcare logistics not only helps but also enables the efficient carrying out of processes in the health sector. Proof of this is, for example, the management of patient transport, since thanks to the implementation of specific computer systems, it is possible to optimize health planning and make it more efficient.

Therefore, the digitalization of healthcare logistics is evident: a sector that implements technologies rapidly. This is due, in part, to the scarcity of public economic resources, which has led the health sector to search for effective and rapidly implemented alternatives that can fill the “technological hole” due to the lack of such economic resources. All of this leads to the lack of efficient tools and, therefore, to the search for alternatives outside the borders of their own sectors that help with the demand for health needs.

Some of the most common problems in healthcare logistics

Logistics management in the healthcare sector is one of the most challenging processes due to the large number of factors involved, in addition to the enormous social responsibility that it entails. Therefore, identifying the most common problems faced by this type of logistics is a key factor in determining possible effective solutions.

Use the technique of 5-Why Originally from Toyota, from the creators of the entire Lean methodology, it is a good way to identify those problems and their causes.

For example, the one that is probably the biggest and most widespread of your problems: obsolescence.

Digitalization is here to stay and that affects any sector, including healthcare. It is not necessary to delve into the innumerable advantages provided by technology in any of its aspects, but it is necessary to highlight all the problems currently faced by all those companies, sectors or even processes that are not digitized.

Not making use of digital tools such as specialized software leads to much slower processes, since they are carried out manually and not in an automated way. There is also a greater risk that unpredictable human errors may occur, the difficulty of maintaining a consistent process over time, or simply the risk that no one else knows how to do certain tasks.

The problem of obsolescence not only has an impact on slow and archaic processes, but also on consequences derived from it. An example of this is the case of a home care service: when carrying out daily planning manually, they are forced to invest a lot of time in the organization; in addition, the result of such manual planning will inevitably be inefficient, since it will be impossible to calculate distances and time intervals precisely. Wasting time on very scarce health resources, such as a doctor or a nurse, to name just a few examples. This is one of the big mistakes of last-mile management: an obsolete planning strategy.

Another very common derivative problem in correspondence with healthcare logistics is, precisely, the lack of traceability. Without mechanisms to ensure the necessary monitoring of our operations and to know the updates of the estimated arrival times, it will be very difficult to manage possible day-to-day unforeseen events and we will have to improvise, which ultimately generates inefficiencies, overdemand on healthcare equipment and an impact on the quality of care and the service provided.

Tools for the logistical planning of health routes: what you should keep in mind

As mentioned before, healthcare logistics has become very important in recent years, especially considering the current health crisis caused by Covid-19 and the difficulty with planning many processes in the face of an unexpected peak in demand. Therefore, having planning tools to meet each of the medical needs of each of the health activities is vital to obtain a better service at a lower cost.

Next, we'll guide you through the 5 key elements you should consider for the logistical planning of health routes:

· Route planning and optimization: Having a route planning service will ensure the correct management of operations taking into account parameters such as mileage or travel time. With the right software, this will be an autonomous task, in which you will not have to invest time and with an optimal result, since it will always offer the most efficient route.

· Proactive monitoring: Monitoring the operations in real time will be very useful for you to be able to face changes or possible setbacks that arise.

· Communication: Transparency and direct communication with users is essential for their satisfaction with our service.

· Flexibility: It is necessary to have a tool that has sufficient flexibility to be able to make changes throughout the operating process, such as being able to modify delivery times according to the urgency or to transfer a service from one driver to another, among others.

· Easy implementation: Prioritize tools that are easy and quick to implement, which in a matter of a few hours you can use at 100%, without having to invest too much time in explanations or meetings. Choosing complex tools makes it harder for people who have to use it on a daily basis to be more difficult to adopt and tend to keep doing things as usual.