Routific upgrades route optimization app

Supply chain software startup Routific Inc. said Tuesday it had launched an upgrade to its route optimization program for last-mile delivery.

The new platform minimizes driving time by optimizing routes for an entire fleet of drivers, and allows dispatchers to track drivers' progress while they're on the road, Vancouver, B.C.-based Routific said.

Combined with end-of-day analytics, that functionality allows business to remain accountable to rising consumer expectations for swift delivery while reducing costs for the most expensive leg of the supply chain relay, the company said.

Routific plans to target its latest release at delivery businesses that have resorted to discounting and artificially low consumer prices to stay alive in a competitive market segment, company founder and CEO Marc Kuo said in a release. One solution is to turn away from an on-demand model and offer a more efficient scheduled-delivery approach instead, he said.

"Delivery businesses are not impossible, but the approach needs to be put on its head - they need to focus on profitability right off the bat," Kuo said. "Unless you're at the scale of Uber, building a sustainable, profitable business is near impossible. But we've seen a huge uptake with companies that are turning to a scheduled and predictable approach to their last-mile logistics."

Routific's core technology calculates the shortest path for a truck to reach all of its destinations by applying a version of the "Bees Algorithm," a formula that uses the food-foraging behavior of honeybee swarms as a model for performing complex mathematical optimization calculations.