Your board of directors might not understand the nitty gritty of modern supply chains, but they know the difference between a good and bad DIFOT (delivered in-full, on-time) rate. For fleet managers, DIFOT is more than a number – it’s what you’re judged against.
Yet, despite its importance, most fleet operators still try to maintain or improve their DIFOT rate with spreadsheets, phone calls, and driver instinct. That approach no longer fits the demands of a modern supply chain.
DIFOT doesn’t struggle based on one major failure, but due to an accumulation of failures so small an operator might not notice. A driver takes a ‘shortcut’ through a school zone at pick up. A stop is sequenced after its time window closes. A dispatcher sends the wrong van to the job. Individually, they’re not the end of the world. Collectively, they’re silent killers that can become a major commercial problem.
How do you improve delivery performance?
The easiest way to miss a delivery window is to plan as if it doesn’t exist. Manual planning sequences stops geographically: drop A, then B, then C, because they’re in that direction as the bird flies. That might work for a carrier pigeon, or a van or two in a small area. It breaks down across 40 vehicles in a city like Sydney, or when drops are appointment-based (think building materials or pathology samples).
Route optimisation software goes beyond a map and an eye test. It weighs time windows, driver hours, vehicle capacity, depot returns, and traffic patterns by time of day. That’s hundreds of variables per route, recalculated in seconds. Even seasoned dispatchers would struggle to hold that much in their head. Route optimisation software like NowGo by Shippit does the heavy lifting, weighing every constraint at once and building the route around it.
When the system knows a medical run has a regulated two-hour window that triggers a patient recall if missed, it prioritises that over a closer collection. And when exceptions hit, a late driver or a blocked dock, the route rebuilds in real-time.
Consistency is crucial. A fleet running 97% every day beats one running 99% on Mondays and 93% on Thursdays, even if the monthly average looks similar. A customer will renew the contract it can rely on.
How do you cut failed deliveries and redelivery costs?
With fuel prices up in 2026 and inflation expected to rise further, even more pressure will hit your already razor-thin margins. Every delivery, you pay for fuel, driver hours, vehicle time, and the return leg. If your delivery fails, you have to pay again tomorrow. For a large delivery like plasterboard to a site, redelivery can exceed the margin on the entire order.
Most failures are avoidable. A route too tight to absorb traffic, a vehicle too small for the load, a driver assigned to a job they’re not certified for. Good route optimisation software catches these as the route is built, around hard constraints like certifications, vehicle specs, and appointment windows.
Disruption is still an occupational hazard. When a van won’t start or a driver calls in sick, NowGo reassigns the job to the nearest viable driver in real time, resequencing stops and pushing overflow to a second run rather than a next-day redelivery. The result is higher DIFOT, healthier margins, and fewer WISMO (where is my order?) enquiries, which can account for up to 70% of customer service contact for delivery-led businesses.
A growth lever, not a scorecard
For many operators, DIFOT is a number the board nods or frowns at each quarter. With route optimisation software, it becomes a growth lever waiting to be pulled. If you want to understand how route optimisation software can underpin your next phase of growth, book a demo of NowGo by Shippit.
- Adam Amato is a Senior Account Executive at Shippit