The hospital receives from 6 to 9 a.m. The restaurant takes deliveries between 2 and 4 p.m., after lunch service. The school kitchen receives only on Tuesdays and Fridays. Each customer's delivery window is a constraint the route has to respect, and a missed window is not just late. It can mean a refused delivery, a second trip, or a kitchen short on product during service.

Enforcing windows takes three things: accurate windows on file, route plans built around them, and a clear process for the day a truck is going to miss one.

What to record for each customer

  • Delivery days. Which days the customer can receive, and which days they usually order for.
  • Time window. The earliest and latest time a delivery is accepted. Ask for the actual receiving hours, not the opening hours. They are often different.
  • Exceptions. Holidays, seasonal hours, school breaks and one-off closures.
  • A second window, if there is one. Some customers can accept a later window if the first is missed. Knowing it in advance turns a failed stop into a late one.
  • Receiving conditions. Dock or front door, lift gate needed, parking restrictions, which entrance to use and who to ask for.
  • A delivery-day contact. A phone number that someone at the receiving end actually answers.

Put this on the customer record, not in a dispatcher's head or on a sticky note by the dispatch desk. When the dispatcher is on vacation, the windows should still be there.

Hard windows and soft windows

Not every window is equally firm. Separate them:

  • Hard windows are fixed receiving hours that the customer enforces: a hospital dock that closes, a school with a set receiving time, a building that only allows deliveries before a certain hour. Missing one means the delivery fails.
  • Soft windows are preferences, such as "mornings are better." Plan for them when you can, and break them when the route needs it.

Be careful about treating every window as hard. Each hard window removes options from the plan, and too many narrow, hard windows in one area can mean more trucks or longer days to serve the same stops. Ask customers which windows are truly fixed, and write down the answer.

Plan routes around windows

  1. Assign each order to a delivery day the customer can receive.
  2. Place hard-window stops first, on routes that can reach them in time.
  3. Fit the remaining stops around them, using realistic drive times and realistic time at each stop.
  4. Check that each route finishes within driver hours, with some slack for traffic and slow stops.
  5. Have a dispatcher review the plan. Someone who knows the customers will spot what a planner misses.

A firm cut-off time for orders helps here. Early-window customers need their orders picked and loaded first, and that only works if their orders are in on time. For the planning side in more detail, see time vs distance route planning.

When a truck is going to miss a window

Traffic, a breakdown or a slow stop earlier on the route will sometimes push a delivery late. What matters is what happens next:

  • The driver tells dispatch early. As soon as the driver sees a window at risk, not after it has passed.
  • Someone calls the customer. A quick call with a new arrival estimate lets the customer plan around it, or tell you they cannot receive. A receiver left waiting with no word is the delivery a customer remembers.
  • Dispatch decides. Re-sequence the remaining stops, use the customer's second window, or move the delivery to the next day.
  • Record the outcome. If the stop fails, the reason should be "outside the window," so it does not get mixed up with refusals or closures.

Measure it

Track on-time delivery as stops delivered inside their window divided by stops that had a window. Look at it by route and by customer, not only as a fleet average. A customer who is late every week points to one of three causes: an unrealistic window, an underestimate of the time at that stop, or a route that has grown too long. Read on-time rate next to the other trucking KPIs, especially cost per stop.

Review windows once or twice a year with each customer. Receiving hours drift as kitchens change staff and hours, and an out-of-date window is as bad as no window.

Windows have a cost

A tight window can be worth honoring, but it is not free. An early, hard window on the far side of your territory can shape a whole route. Options include minimum order sizes for tight windows, set delivery days by area, or a delivery charge for windows that cost much more to serve. Keep the conversation with the customer factual: what the window takes to serve, and what you can offer instead.

Where APFoodz fits

APFoodz routing plans around each customer's delivery window from the start, and the driver app records what happened at each stop.