A maintenance plan software creates automated route planning

One of the most important routine tasks is route planning. Every facility manager faces the challenge of deploying available staff profitably. Optimal routes are essential: unnecessary detours make assignments longer and more expensive. In the past, creating routes required a lot of manual work.

Digitalisation now helps here too—and we go one step further. Instead of offering a separate route planner tailored to facility management, it is integrated into the maintenance plan software. What does that mean for you? You get a suite for all day-to-day tasks. The software also includes functions such as:

• Digitising the specification of services
• Completing tasks via smartphone
• Reports with photo evidence via smartphone
• Real-time overview of tasks
• Ticketing system / helpdesk

Why is route planning so important?

If you plan routes better, you can visit more customers. It sounds simple, but in practice it’s often difficult, because route planning is a challenging optimisation problem in computer science. You can spend a lot of time improving plans manually—or leave it to an algorithm. Specialised software can solve this problem faster today than even the most capable human.

Efficient route planning offers major savings potential for any business. Every trip creates fuel costs and, of course, personnel costs. If you can reduce trips and distances, you gain a real competitive advantage—especially over competitors who adopt new technology only hesitantly.

Those who act quickly and consistently rely on automatic route calculation can offer more competitive prices. Costs fall, and savings can at least partly be passed on to customers. Route planning is therefore far more than a daily convenience. Anyone who wants to position their business optimally uses every opportunity route planning offers.

The goal is simple: if route planning works as intended, you can reach more properties in the same amount of time. That allows you to complete significantly more tasks. Practitioners should not underestimate how large the potential really is.

What makes the maintenance plan software so efficient?

Facility management includes a wide range of tasks related to planning, control and operation of real estate. Many tasks are small in scope but still essential. Good route planning integrates them in a way that requires as few additional trips as possible—something that is often hard to achieve without software.

AI always considers all due tasks as a whole and determines route planning that meets all requirements. Nothing falls through the cracks, and the customer can see that the agreed services are delivered. Companies should not forgo planning routes as efficiently as possible—this is another key success factor in facility management.

How does automated route planning work via the maintenance plan software?

With our maintenance plan software, employees have all key data at a glance. Setup takes little effort and is done directly on the smartphone. Staff carry the device with them, and thanks to the web application the deployment plan is always available. The route to be driven requires no manual planning—the software takes care of it.

Routes are calculated automatically and continuously. That means employees always have access to the currently best route. Integrating this function into maintenance plan software is obvious, because all the data required as a basis for route calculation is already captured there.

Using the smartphone and GPS, for example, the employee’s location can be recorded precisely. At the same time, property locations are stored. The algorithm processes all this data. The AI suggests a route that is optimal under the given conditions.

This means employees are never burdened with having to think about the route. That is one of the key advantages when it comes to making optimal use of resources. Everyone focuses on their actual work—the optimal route is simply provided.

The calculation results are displayed on a digitised map. It is important that all information about tasks, properties, employee locations and routes is brought together in one place. Only then do you get the overview needed to make optimal decisions.

Upcoming tasks at properties should always be handled by employees who are nearby. Prioritisation is also important, because not all tasks are equally urgent. The maintenance plan software takes all of these aspects into account and factors them into the calculation.

Our solution goes further

In our solution, route planning is an integral part of the maintenance plan software. With our facility management software, everyone can benefit from digitised and optimised workflows. The property-specific specification of services can be digitised easily, and all individual property criteria can be considered. You can then record the frequency for the relevant activities.

But we didn’t stop there. Route planning is a natural part of our solution and strengthens it in a critical area. Because for optimal work planning, it is not enough to simply complete the tasks that are due.

They also have to be completed within an appropriate timeframe. Using optimal routes is a prerequisite for that. In practice, unplanned tasks can arise at any time. These ad-hoc tasks change the daily schedule, and route planning must respond—this is why it is so important to have AI by your side.

It takes over complex route planning and can react dynamically to changing circumstances. No matter how complex the tasks across different properties become on a given workday, artificial intelligence can recalculate and adjust routes at any time. This provides a high degree of flexibility that cannot be achieved with a manual approach.

We see ImmoTrack as a complete solution for the facility manager: powerful software for all monitoring needs, plus support for planning tasks. Route definition is part of that.

Higher productivity thanks to ImmoTrack

With our solution, we help practitioners reach a higher level of productivity and use resources optimally—so they can hold their own even in a highly dynamic environment.

Use all the possibilities a maintenance plan software offers. Contact us to learn more about route planning!