Grocery delivery
Providence, RI
Hollis Grocer Co.
A neighbourhood grocer running two delivery waves a day cut a third of its miles by planning both waves together instead of by zip code.
31%
fewer miles than the hand plan
1 h 10 min
earlier home, every evening run
14 vans
on the road each day
The problem
Hollis took orders until 2 pm for the evening wave and planned it by hand, one zip code per van. Vans crossed each other on the way out and the last one was often back after closing.
What changed
Orders now flow in from the shop’s checkout. At 2:05 pm the dispatcher presses Plan routes, checks the three windows Kerbel flags as tight, and sends each driver their run.
Mileage fell from about 2,900 to 2,000 miles a week across 14 vans, and the last van is back an hour and ten minutes earlier on an average night.
We used to plan by zip code on a whiteboard. Now the evening wave is home before the store closes, and nobody has touched the whiteboard since March.
Dana Whitlock
Operations lead