How we delivered 244 items in one day

9 months, a new system, 244 items delivered in one day. We revolutionized our logistics with VRP for faster, more transparent rental deliveries.

Over the past nine months, we've been hard at work creating something incredible for our customers. It all began with a series of meetings in the beautiful Bali Batur area with our dedicated team of 10+ in-house drivers and five skilled developers. We identified the biggest challenges in our logistical operations and set out to solve them, aiming to make deliveries faster, more predictable, and more transparent than ever before. Ultimately, this will boost customer experience with automatic updates and real-time tracking.

From GoJek Deliveries to In-House Logistics

Back in 2021, we started delivering rental orders using GoJek. As our business grew, however, we learned that relying on third-party delivery services wouldn't let us build the trust and customer experience we envisioned. This hard lesson led us to invest in our very own fleet of drivers. It meant more overhead, but having an in-house team gave us the control and reliability we needed.

Today, we handle between 100 to 500 items every day—an achievement that comes with massive logistical challenges. Running a small rental business can be as simple as having some inventory and a vehicle to deliver items. But scaling is another story entirely: with thousands of customer interactions and potential issues cropping up every day, automation and effective communication become crucial. It's no wonder there aren't many large-scale rental companies out there—the complexity of logistics often makes growth difficult.

Identifying the Key Challenge: Logistical Transparency

During our workshop, the single biggest challenge we found revolved around transparency in logistics. Customers needed clearer, real-time insights into where their orders were and when they'd arrive. That's why we decided to build two systems from the ground up:

• Warehouse Management System (WMS) – to keep track of inventory, order statuses, and to ensure efficient flow of items in and out of our warehouses.
• Last-Mile Delivery System – to optimize driver routes, balance delivery and pickup orders, and give both drivers and customers real-time updates.

Tackling the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP)

While building our new system, we quickly discovered that rental logistics—delivering and picking up items at the same time—is extremely complex to automate. This is where the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) comes in.

VRP: A mathematical optimization approach that finds the most efficient routes for multiple vehicles visiting a set of locations. If there's only one vehicle, it simplifies to the well-known Traveling Salesperson Problem (TSP).

By leveraging these algorithms, we can ensure each vehicle follows the most efficient route, factoring in not only deliveries and pickups but also vehicle capacity. This prevents overfilling cars and helps us keep to our time schedules.

VRP Route Optimization Visualization

Building the Customer Interface

Once we had the logistics backbone figured out, we moved on to the customer-facing interface—allowing our customers to see: Predicted delivery times. Live GPS tracking of the driver's current location. All stops the driver will make before theirs.

Surprisingly, this was the easiest part. With the right data flow from the VRP and WMS, creating a user-friendly interface for customers was straightforward.

Customer Tracking Interface

The Driver App: Handling Real-World Complications

Our drivers face numerous daily challenges: Customers sometimes enter the wrong address. Customers may not be at home at the scheduled time. Customers occasionally leave items on the street when returning orders.

To handle these scenarios, our driver app needed to be simple yet flexible, featuring: Built-in communication tools to contact the customer directly. Options to modify order items on the fly. Damage reporting and image uploads for real-time proof. Automated updates to reflect any changes in pickups or deliveries.

Driver App Interface

244 Items in a Single Day

We're proud of how far we've come, and one day in particular stands out: we delivered 244 items in a single day. Pulling it off required precise coordination and constant communication. Our drivers had to adjust on the fly, and our software had to handle last-minute changes without any hiccups. The successful outcome proved that our new system could really deliver—both literally and figuratively.

Looking Ahead

We made this blog post to give our customers a clearer picture of what goes into delivering a rental order. Now, when orders are delayed by a minute or two, you'll know just how much work goes into preventing even the slightest holdup. We're not stopping here—we'll continue refining our systems and processes to make renting more affordable, more reliable, and more comfortable for everyone.

Thank you for being part of our journey,

Your Monis Team