Logistics Provider Scales While Meeting Diverse Customer Needs
Million Deliveries, a fast-growing Canadian logistics provider, has built its same-day delivery operations around speed, responsiveness and customer transparency. The company’s clients range from local retailers to global shipping giants, so Million Deliveries needs to accommodate a variety of customer requirements for scheduling, delivery workflows and reporting.
To serve its diverse customer base, Million Deliveries has built a flexible delivery operation on the foundation of a last mile transportation platform from Route4Me. “We’ve got a really good system built around Route4Me,” says Matt Crawley, Senior Project Manager at Million Deliveries. “With Route4Me, everything is seamless from order receipt to delivery to using the route reports for billing. So we have a one-stop tool.”
A Trusted Last Mile Partner For Local Businesses
Million Deliveries is a full-service logistics provider based in Mississauga, Ontario. The company hauls freight throughout Canada and the United States, but it also has built a hyper-local delivery operation serving the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Businesses in sectors like automotive, sporting goods, apparel, jewelry and general e-commerce rely on Million Deliveries for same-day delivery to consumers within that area.
For same-day delivery, a business creates an order in Million Deliveries’ system to generate a shipping label. At the same time, an order is created in Route4Me via API so that Million Deliveries’ planner can assign the order to a route and schedule it for pickup by the 11 a.m. cutoff time for same-day delivery. Once packages come back to Million Deliveries’ warehouse, they’re scanned into possession, scheduled and routed out for delivery that day, and then load scanned before leaving the warehouse. The driver captures proof of delivery at the destination to complete the fulfillment cycle.
End-to-end tracking is a key selling point for Million Deliveries’ same-day service. “Our API captures timestamps for each step from Route4Me, along with proof of delivery like photos and a signature, and we surface all that information on our website. Our customers can enter a tracking number on our website and see their order’s status at any point in the process, from when our system created the shipping label to when the driver delivered it,” Crawley explains.
Million Deliveries Completes The Last Mile For A Global Carrier
Million Deliveries operates under a different model providing a major global carrier with last mile delivery in the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. In this case, the global carrier’s midline partner, a trucking company, does line hauls to Million Deliveries’ warehouse in Moncton, New Brunswick, Sunday through Tuesday. For deliveries on Wednesday through Friday, the carrier flies a jet into Moncton’s airport, where Million Deliveries picks up air cans off the aircraft and brings them back to its warehouse for sorting, loading and dispatch.
The carrier electronically sends a manifest with a day’s parcels to Million Deliveries, where a planner at the Moncton warehouse formats and uploads the data into the company’s order management system and, via API, into Route4Me for route planning and dispatch to the company’s drivers. The manifest includes a workflow ID code for each parcel specifying handling instructions, which could include, for example, a requirement for a signature and photo proof of delivery (POD).
Drivers execute their deliveries using the Route4Me driver app, which also lets them capture POD based on the specified workflow and mark a delivery completed, or, alternatively, mark the delivery as “failed” and specify a reason. “The app makes it seamless for the drivers. They know exactly what they have to do, and they don’t have to guess how to handle any given package,” Crawley says.
Real-time data on each parcel flows from Route4Me back into Million Deliveries’ own order management system. Tracking for every package is available through Million Deliveries’ website using the carrier’s barcode, showing status from label creation through order delivered, including any required POD and delivery notes. Currently Million Deliveries also manually pulls a daily report on deliveries out of Route4Me to send back to the carrier, although Crawley says the company is working on an API to send that information directly back to the carrier.
Proven Business Processes Deliver A Foundation For Growth
In building up its last mile operations in the GTA and Moncton, Million Deliveries has demonstrated a proven capability to manage high volumes, tight delivery windows and complex workflows. Now, with a reliable platform in place and strong operational processes at key hubs like Toronto and Moncton, Million Deliveries is looking to expand its operations to encompass additional parts of the GTA and Halifax, Newfoundland.
Crawley highlights Route4Me as a key part of this expansion strategy, not just for routing, but for its API capabilities, ease of use and integration flexibility across new clients and workflows. “We are definitely looking at expanding and using Route4Me more now that we have a really good working system with it,” Crawley says.
About Million Deliveries
Million Deliveries is a full-service logistics provider in Canada and the USA delivering packages & freight to you and your customers. Million Deliveries offers a wide range of logistics services for every type of freight, from an envelope to a shipping container.
