A round that grew one cafe at a time
Round 3 started as a dozen shops in town. Now it also goes out to the garden centre, back in for two cafes that opened on the ring road, and out again to a hotel that wants its bread by seven. The driver knows it by heart and makes it work, but it finishes later every month, and the hotel has complained twice.
Round 1, meanwhile, is done by half past seven. Nobody has sat down and redrawn the rounds, because doing it on a map with pins and a spreadsheet is a weekend's work and the drivers would have to agree.
Why rounds drift out of shape
Early morning bread delivery has hard constraints that general route planners do not always capture: cafes that must have bread before they open, shops with a key safe, a school kitchen with a narrow window, vans that must be loaded in round order by the packing team.
- New customers are added to whichever round is nearest, not best.
- Delivery windows are known to drivers, not written down.
- Some drops need a particular driver because of keys or access.
- Van capacity in trays is not checked when drops are added.
- Lost customers leave gaps that nobody closes.
What drifting rounds cost
Late deliveries to customers who open early, which is the quickest way to lose a cafe account. Longer rounds mean more fuel and more paid hours. Unbalanced rounds mean one driver under pressure every day while another waits. And taking on a new customer becomes a question of who can squeeze it in, not whether it is worth having.
The round planner we build
- Every customer drop is recorded with its address, delivery window, typical tray count, days of delivery and access notes such as key safe or back door.
- Van capacity in trays and each driver's start time are set for each round.
- The current rounds are loaded as they are driven today, so the planner starts from reality, not a blank map.
- For a new customer, the planner shows the best round and position to add them, and the effect on each round's finish time.
- A full reshuffle can be tried on screen, using a routing engine such as Google's or an open-source one, keeping fixed any drops you lock to a particular driver.
- The chosen rounds produce drop lists in order for each driver and a packing order for the bakery, so vans are loaded last drop first.
| Constraint | Held as |
|---|---|
| Cafe must have bread before opening | Latest drop time |
| Key safe or back door access | Access notes, locked to a driver if needed |
| Van space | Trays per van |
| Days of delivery | Per customer, per weekday |
The planner suggests. You and your drivers decide. A driver's local knowledge often spots something no map shows, and the plan is adjusted for it.
Rounds you can reason about
Taking on a new customer becomes a quick check of where they fit and what it does to the round. Reshuffles can be tested and discussed with drivers before anything changes. Delivery windows are written down, so a cover driver knows them too. And packing follows the round order, which saves time on the loading bay.
When you are thinking about adding a van, or dropping a thinly served area, you can see the effect on paper first.
Do your rounds look like this?
- Rounds have grown by adding customers wherever they fit.
- Some rounds finish late while others finish early.
- Delivery windows live in drivers' heads.
- Early-opening cafes have complained about late bread.
- Redrawing rounds feels like a weekend project.