Integration of vehicle routing and scheduling software with operational management is tightened up with the launch by Optrak of a new dynamic scheduling feature, which has been developed in association with mobile workforce integration specialist Talecom.

Once Optrak has optimised a delivery round, the details are transmitted directly to a PDA carried by the driver, which runs a version of Talecom's Wireless Delivered software. The driver can then update the information as the journey progresses and send the amended details back to base. If there are delays or other unforeseen developments, the Optrak software recalculates the journey and sends new instructions to the driver.

Optrak managing director Tim Piggott says the key to making this work is the ability to "lock down" the part of the work that has already been completed, limiting the new optimisation to outstanding work.

He admits there may be limited opportunities for this kind of live rescheduling where product is allocated to specific customers. "But it will work with bulk deliveries, and of course with collections." There are also reporting opportunities; the system has the ability to feed historic data to a data warehouse for later analysis.

The next stage of the programme is likely to be the addition of vehicle tracking. "We could achieve this fairly easily with a GPS add-on to the PDA."