Using the Capacity Metrics feature in Verizon Connect® Dispatch™ you can specify the maximum amount of a product your vehicles can carry, and the amount of this product that your drivers can load or unload at customer sites for each job. Using this information, Dispatch determines whether a given job can be completed on a given route, and moves or reorders jobs in or between routes based on their load requirements and priority.
Vehicle capacity is measured in arbitrary units that you define. These units can be named as you want, as whatever makes the most sense to your business; for example as "cases" or "pallets", or used to represent weights or volumes (kilograms, pounds, or gallons, for example).
Percentages of units are permitted, for example "1.3 pounds", allowing greater granularity of job loads and vehicle capacities. When working with these capacity metrics you need to:
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Enable the capacity metrics feature, if not already enabled.
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Define your capacity metrics, to make them available for configuration on vehicles and jobs.
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Configure your vehicles, to specify the capacity limit of each vehicle in your fleet in terms of these metrics.
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Create or edit jobs, to specify how much of the metrics will be loaded or unloaded from a vehicle at the customer site during the job.
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Re-sequence your existing routes to ensure the new vehicle and job capacity settings are taken into consideration by the optimizer.
Once these steps are completed, Dispatch builds routes, and optimizes existing routes when requested. These routes do not exceed the specified vehicle load limits. Dispatch also manages jobs by their individual load requirements. When a job cannot be completed because of insufficient vehicle capacity, the job is unrouted automatically; or when optimizing several routes, the job is moved to another route that permits the job to be completed, if possible.
Note
When a job is manually dragged into a route assigned to a vehicle with insufficient capacity to service the job, a route warning is generated that indicates that "Load exceeds limit of [Maximum Load] Units of [Capacity Metric Name] by [Maximum Load - Route Total Load] Units" (for example "Load exceeds limit of 500 Units of cases by 100 Units").
When viewing jobs on the Jobs List panel with the Capacity Metrics feature turned on, the following additional columns of information are available:
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Up to four arbitrary capacity metrics that you have previously defined on the Capacity Metrics screen. There is a separate column for each capacity metric. In the example screenshot above, "Weight" and "Cases" have been added as capacity metrics, and are shown as the far right columns.
When viewing routes on the Daily Routes panel with the Capacity Metric feature turned on, the following additional columns of information are available:
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Any capacity metrics that you have defined on the Capacity Metrics screen. There is a separate column for each capacity metric. In the example screenshot above, "Cases" has been added as a capacity metric.
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[Capacity Metric] Utilization: This column includes a bar graph that shows the percentage of the vehicle's load capacity of the capacity metric that is used by the route. When the route load exceeds 79% of the vehicle's capacity, this graph is colored yellow. When it exceeds 100% of the vehicle's capacity, the graph is colored red. When using decimal values in your vehicle capacities, these are rounded up or down to the nearest whole number (for example a total delivery of 10.5 units on a route assigned to a vehicle with a capacity of 100 units will be shown with a load of 11% in the graph).
The option to manually enable and disable the Capacity Management feature is supported only in Verizon Connect® Dispatch™, and only by 'main' accounts (that is, master accounts with the highest administrative privileges). Speak to your system administrator or manager if you want to change this feature setting. When enabled, the Capacity Management feature adds the Capacity Metrics screen accessed from the Jobs & Routes section of the menu, a Capacity Limits tab on the Edit Vehicle dialog box, support for capacity metrics on jobs, and capacity columns on the Jobs List and the Daily Routes grids.
To enable or disable the Capacity Management feature:
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Click the logged account name in the upper right corner of the Verizon Connect platform interface to open the settings menu:
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Click the Settings button. The Settings dialog box opens:
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Click the Jobs & Routes tab on the left menu:
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Scroll to the bottom of the tab, and then click the Enable Capacity Management button. If the capacity metrics feature is currently enabled, you can also disable it here by pressing the Disable Capacity Management button. The Enable Capacity Management dialog box opens (or, if disabling the capacity metrics feature, the Disable Capacity Management dialog box).
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Click the Reload Fleet button to proceed with the setting change, or the Cancel button to close the dialog without making changes. Dispatch re-starts if you choose to change this setting (the Dispatch screen closes and then immediately re-opens with your new settings).
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Select the Capacity Metrics menu option from the Jobs & Routes section of the platform menu to the left of your screen. The Capacity Metrics window opens. Note that this screen is only available if your subscription includes the feature, and if the option is enabled. A maximum of four capacity metrics can be used.
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Click Add in the upper left corner of the screen.
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Type the details of the properties for the new capacity metric into the form, and then click Save.
The settings for a capacity metric are:
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Name: The name of the capacity metric. After this capacity metric is saved, this name is available as a column in the Jobs List and Daily Routes panels.
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Load Time: The time, in the format "h:mm:ss", it takes to load one unit of the capacity metric onto a vehicle.
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Unload Time: The time, in the format "h:mm:ss", it takes to unload one unit of the capacity metric from a vehicle.
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Select the Vehicles menu option from the Main section of the platform menu to the left of your screen. The Vehicles screen opens.
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Click a vehicle from the Vehicles grid, and then from the contextual menu select Edit Vehicle. The Edit Vehicle dialog box opens.
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Click the Capacity Limits tab of the Edit Vehicle dialog box.
On the Capacity Limits tab you can:
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Add a capacity limit to the vehicle that you defined on the Capacity Metrics screen. To add a vehicle capacity limit, click the Add button in the Capacity Limits section.
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Edit the capacity limit of the vehicle. Select the capacity limit in the list under Capacity Limits and click the Edit button to change the maximum quantity of the metric that the vehicle can carry.
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Delete a capacity limit. Select the capacity limit in the list under Capacity Limits and click the Delete button.
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To save any changes you make, click the Save button.
To add a capacity limit:
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Click the Add button in the Capacity Limits section on the Capacity Limits tab. The Add Capacity Limit dialog box opens.
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Select any of the capacity metrics you defined on the Capacity Metrics screen and define the maximum quantity that the vehicle can carry, and the unit of measurement of this quantity.
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Click the Add button, and then the Save button.
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