Can anybody recommend a product/hosted service which can provide the following? Or is this something easy to program for a web host?
I have a small fleet (2 or 3 vehicles) that need to make scheduled stops at 700 known and static locations (all located in IN, OH and KY). These stops are for regular maintenance on equipment. So I need to be able to use something like the 'Optimize Route' feature in MP2002 to get all the sites in an efficient order. Maintenance stops take 30 minutes.
Now when a storm or something else crops up, I need to have one of the teams visit this emergency site - not immediately - but within a few days. Repairs take 2 hours, on average. Is there a way to programmatically determine when the best time to deviate from the scheduled maintenance route is and go visit the repair site? Is there a software/company that can do this?
I've looked at Locarta.com and ELM Technologies, but they seem to be more focused on GPS location of the vehicles. I don't care so much where exactly Truck#1 is right now, just that he's hitting the sites in the proper order effieciently and I can reroute his as necessary. UPS Logistics is overboard too being about $20K and for many more vehicles.
I've tried to do this manually on my desktop w/MP2002, but trying to optimize over 150 sites crushes my Intel P3-900-384MB RAM WinXP-Pro machine for several hours. I need to be able to recalculate the routes once or twice daily as repair incidents occur.
Of course I'd like to keep cost as low as possible.
Many thanks,
Rob
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