Introduction
If your organization's logistics processes involve staging orders for last-mile deliveries, setting up Distribution Centers (DC) in Mover can significantly enhance your operational efficiency.
By creating a DC within the Mover TMS, you establish a central hub where orders can be pre-sorted and organized before they hit the road. This strategic approach ensures that drivers have the correct orders loaded in the optimal sequence.
The Distribution Center you create on the web app is seamlessly synchronized with the DC mobile app, enabling your DC workers to efficiently stage orders at the gate.
This guide will walk you through the process of setting up a Distribution Center.
What Is a Distribution Center
A Distribution Center (DC) in last-mile logistics is a specialized facility where goods are stored, sorted and prepared for delivery to the final destination, usually the customer's doortstep. In other words, it's a location from where your routes may start.
What is Staging in Last-Mile Logistics
The staging process in last-mile logistics involves preparing and organizing packages at a Distribution Center so that they are ready to be loaded onto delivery vehicles in the correct and logical order based on the planned delivery route.
This process ensures that:
Orders are retrieved and sorted: Packages are gathered and organized according to their delivery destinations
Sequencing: Packages are arranged in the order they will be delivered, optimizing the delivery route.
Loading: Packages are loaded onto delivery vehicles in this order, ensuring that the first deliveries are easily accessible and minimizing handling time during the delivery process
How to Set Up a Distribution Center
Go to Distribution Center
Click New Distribution Center or Add Distribution Center
Add the details of the DC - Name, Address, Time Between Departures
Click Create Distribution Center
Review the DC - the new DC will be appear in the page overview. To view the routes starting from that DC, simply click on the DC's name.
It will initially be empty as no routes have been assigned to it yet. As soon as a route is created which starts at the same address as the DC, it will be shown within the respective Distribution Center.
Edit a DC - to make changes to a DC use the relevant action buttons from the DC Overview
The Distribution Centers from the web-app will be synchronized with the Distribution Center mobile app and shown to any user with permissions to access Distribution Centers.
Grant User Permissions
To access and use the Distribution Center App, users need appropriate permissions.
Go to Organization -> Roles
Locate the Roles that need access to the Distribution Center App and enable the following permissions:
Distribution Center > View
Distribution Center > Edit
That's it! Your Distribution Center is now set up. Whenever a route starts from a DC, the Distribution Center App can be used to optimize order staging.
FAQ
As a Distribution Center Worker, if I don't need to do order staging, what actions can I perform in Distribution Center on the web-app?
You can use the web-app to have an overview of all the routes starting at a specific DC, so you can assess how busy the day will be.
You can also use the web-app to report a problem at a DC.
What happens when I report a problem at a Distribution Center?
Reporting a problem at a Distribution Center helps you identify and track issues occurring at that location. While it doesn't automatically trigger a specific action within the TMS, this data is valuable for analysis. Our team can generate reports on these issues to help your organization address recurring problems.