Hard Time Window
Hard Time Window Constraint Definition
- During the delivery process, more often than not your Customers will demand their Orders to be delivered within a specific time window
- For example, your Customer is a supermarket chain that operates 24/7. However, they will only accept the deliveries within 04 hours daily, from 03:00 A.M. to 07:00 A.M.
- In Abivin vRoute system, this constraint is defined as the Hard Time Window. In this article, we will show you how to solve this constraint
Hard Time Window Types
- First, we will walk you through the types of Hard Time Window in Abivin vRoute system. Currently, there are five types:
- 1 - Customer Group Hard Time Window. This Hard Time Window is used for the Customer Groups. The Customers within the applied Customer Group will be affected by this Hard Time Window
- 2 - Customer Open-Close Time Window
- 3 - Customer Custom Time Window. Apart from the Open-Close Time Window, each Customer can have another Hard Time Window
- 4 - Ship-to Hard Time Window. This Hard Time Window is applied to the Ship-to locations of a Customer
- 5 - Order Hard Time Window. This Hard Time Window is applied to the Sales Orders of a particular Customer
Hard Time Window Constraint Priority Levels
- For User accounts who don't use the Customer Ship-to Profile feature, the Hard Time Window priority level is as follows:
- Order Hard Time Window (If available) > Customer Custom Hard Time Window (If available) > Customer Open-Close Time Window > Customer Group Hard Time Window (If available)
- If more than one of these hard time window types exist for a Customer's Order, they must have a mutual intersection time period, otherwise, the Order will not be optimizable during the Route Plan optimization process and will be deemed Unplanned Order
- For User accounts who use the Customer Ship-to Profile feature, the Hard Time Window priority level is as follows:
- Order Hard Time Window (If available) > Ship-to Hard Time Window (If available) > Customer Group Hard Time Window (If available)
Enable Hard Time Windows Configuration
- You need to enable the Hard Time Windows configuration at the Branch. This configuration is located in the More Configurations > Algorithm sub-tab
![sDBX6ODNNd.png 1485](https://files.readme.io/af816af-sDBX6ODNNd.png)
- Next, you have to set up the Hard Time Windows
Setup Hard Time Windows
Setup Hard Time Windows for Customer Groups
Setup Hard Time Windows for Customer Groups on Webform
- You can input the hard time window of a Customer Group in the Group Time Window field. The Customer Group hard time window must be in the following format: HH:mm-HH:mm (24-hour format)
- If the Customer Group has multiple hard time windows, separate two adjacent hard time windows only by a semicolon, for example, 04:00-12:00;14:00-23:00
![lZuEWK2e0E.png 956](https://files.readme.io/d7eb56d-lZuEWK2e0E.png)
Setup Hard Time Windows for Customer Groups in Excel Import File
- You can input the hard time window of a Customer Group in the Group Time Windows cell. The Customer Group hard time window must be in the following format: HH:mm-HH:mm (24-hour format)
- If the Customer Group has multiple hard time windows, separate two adjacent hard time windows only by a semicolon, for example, 04:00-12:00;14:00-23:00
- If the information of a Customer Group spans across multiple rows, make sure to copy and paste the hard time windows of that Customer Group across all its rows
![55nswvcP3c.png 393](https://files.readme.io/590dab5-55nswvcP3c.png)
Setup Hard Time Windows for Customers
Setup Hard Time Windows for Customers on Webform
- You can input the hard time window of a Customer in the Time Window field (Located in the Main Setting tab) in the following format: HH:mm-HH:mm (24-hour format)
- If the Customer has multiple hard time windows, separate two adjacent hard time windows only by a semicolon, for example, 04:00-12:00;14:00-23:00
![9aBlYoVMmt.png 941](https://files.readme.io/47cafce-9aBlYoVMmt.png)
Setup Hard Time Windows for Customers in Excel Import File
- In the Customer Excel import file, you can input the Hard Time Window of a Customer into their respective Time Window cell, also in the format HH:mm-HH:mm (24-hour format)
- If the Customer has multiple hard time windows, separate two adjacent hard time windows only by a semicolon, for example, 04:00-12:00;14:00-23:00
![lWjyof4TC7.png 227](https://files.readme.io/99ab539-lWjyof4TC7.png)
Setup Hard Time Window for Sales Orders
Setup Hard Time Window for Sales Orders on Webform
- On Webform, the hard time window of a Sales Order is input in the Order Time Window field, following the HH:mm-HH:mm format (24 hour format)
- If the Sales Order has multiple hard time windows, separate two adjacent hard time windows only by a semicolon. For example: 06:00-07:00;09:00-10:00
![rwK6an7Ijl.png 624](https://files.readme.io/b4e7535-rwK6an7Ijl.png)
Setup Hard Time Window for Sales Orders in Excel Import File
- In the Excel import file, input the hard time window of the Sales Order into the Time Window cell
- If the Sales Order has multiple hard time windows, separate two adjacents hard time windows only by a semicolon. For example: 06:00-07:00;09:00-10:00
- If the information of a Sales Order spans across multiple rows, make sure to copy the hard time window values of that Order across all of its rows
![ddO4EibCUj.png 278](https://files.readme.io/2e1a9dd-ddO4EibCUj.png)
Route Plan Optimization With Hard Time Windows
- After setting the hard time windows, you can proceed to the Route Plan Optimization process
- The system will take into account the hard time windows and calculate the optimized Delivery Routes that satisfy those hard time windows
- If a Customer places multiple Sales Orders, and each of the Sales Orders has a different hard time window, then you have to make sure that the hard time windows of these Orders have a mutual intersection period, otherwise the system will not be able to generate the optimized Delivery Route for them
- For example, a Customer places three Orders, 01; 02: 03
- The hard time window of Order 01 is 03:00-07:00
- The hard time window of Order 02 is 05:00-08:00
- The hard time window of Order 03 is 06:00-09:00
- As you can see, the hard time windows of these three Orders share an intersection period, 06:00-07:00. During the Route Plan optimization process, the system will try to generate the Delivery Route for these Orders within that intersection period
Updated about 3 years ago