Maximise Your Delivery Performance With DIFOT & OTIF

While there are many metrics you need to be aware of as an ecommerce business owner, two should stand out above the rest.

DIFOT, which stands for "Delivery In Full On Time," and OTIF, or "On Time and In Full."

These interchangeable terms hold significant weight regarding efficient and reliable parcel delivery. They reflect your business’s ability to meet a fundamental objective: getting the right products to customers when they need them in the correct quantities.

Much like tracking sales figures and cash flow, managing DIFOT and OTIF is equally vital for ecommerce businesses. These are metrics of fulfilment efficiency and carrier reliability.

In this article, we will delve deeper into the intricacies of DIFOT and OTIF, exploring their importance and how they can be harnessed to enhance the efficiency and scalability of your fulfilment operations.

Let’s get started.

Understanding DIFOT and OTIF

DIFOT measures whether every item in an order is delivered and accepted by the customer. The exact quantity ordered must precisely match what's received by the purchaser.

The score is impacted if a package is damaged during transportation or there is any human error in the fulfilment process. The customer, expecting an intact delivery, may reject the compromised box, resulting in the order no longer being considered delivered in full.

The second half of this performance measure is "On Time." The driver must arrive at the customer's doorstep close to the estimated arrival time.

Both performance metrics can effectively measure your own business’s performance and your carriers. You can understand which ones consistently lag behind in delivering orders on time. Alternatively, you might uncover punctual partners whose parcels are often returned due to damage.

Comparing DIFOT to Other Metrics

The higher your DIFOT score, the more it contributes to your success in handling orders and coordinating the transportation of packages.

While there are other performance metrics you can choose to monitor, they don’t encompass everything DIFOT captures. Shipped-On-Time (SOT) and On-Time Performance (OTP), while valuable in their own right, tend to focus on specific aspects of the supply chain. SOT focuses on whether your shipments left the facility on time, and OTP tracks the general on-time performance.

DIFOT requires every item in an order to be delivered on time, in full, and in the precise quantity ordered. It not only ensures that your products commence their journey promptly but that they also reach the customer's doorstep securely. The metric encapsulates the entire customer experience, from order placement to receipt.

Calculating DIFOT and OTIF

Now that you understand the significance of DIFOT, you can learn how these metrics are calculated.

How is DIFOT and OTIC Calculated?

• Identify the Delivery Status: Determine whether the items in a given order are categorised as "Delivered," "Not Delivered," or "Partially Delivered." Tracking the parcels at every stage of the fulfilment process can ensure that items reach their intended destination while helping you calculate the exact percentage of items delivered in full over a specific period.
• Retrieve the On-Time Delivery Metric: Check whether the items in the order were delivered within the specified time frame. The courier company often provides the estimated time of arrival. Evaluating if the delivery aligns closely with the ETA is crucial. There are apps available that can enable the customisation of time windows for ETA, allowing you to define the acceptable time gaps between the estimated and actual arrival times.
• Percentage Calculation: Calculate the percentage of items delivered in full and on time over a designated time frame. For instance, if 95 out of 100 parcels arrived on time on a given day, your DIFOT score is 95%.

What Can Impact Your DIFOT Calculation

Several factors can significantly affect your ability to achieve a high DIFOT score. These are the most important to be aware of:

• Stock Levels: Maintaining suitable stock levels is crucial to ensuring that products are delivered in full and on time. Predicting when you might run low can be challenging due to various factors such as seasonal trends, industry shifts, customer buying patterns and supply lead times.
• Human Error: Mistakes happen, but they can incur substantial costs. Errors such as miscounting, misreading, or misplacing items within an order can lead to a drop in your DIFOT score.
• Disorganised Warehouse: Inefficient warehouse management can significantly drain your DIFOT score. Constantly rectifying mistakes or losing orders can leave you feeling like you’re always playing catch up. If your inbox is full of customer enquiries regarding shipment errors, it might be time to reconsider how your warehouse is being run.
• Manufacturing Faults: Products that are broken, tampered with, or not up to satisfactory standards should not be shipped, as they can negatively impact your DIFOT score.

The Best Ways to Monitor DIFOT and OTIF

When countless orders go in and out daily, tracking Delivery in Full On Time becomes tough. To navigate this challenge effectively, you can utilise analytics tools to gather actionable insights into your fulfilment performance.

While it might be tempting to use Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets, these methods demand substantial time investments, as well as constant number crunching and meticulous data scrutiny.

The analytics features offered by companies like Track-POD provide a comprehensive web and mobile solution for delivery management. It offers advanced analytics that store your performance insights for up to two years, allowing a comprehensive view of your fulfilment operations.

Track-POD's analytics tool goes beyond providing an overview of order and route details. It incorporates the crucial KPIs you need to help you make strategic decisions:

• Delivery in Full: This measures your ability to meet customer expectations by providing all the items they ordered.
• Partially Delivered: This metric is vital for uncovering areas where improvements are needed to achieve full delivery.
• On-Time Delivery: This indicator reflects your ability to keep promises made to your customers.
• Average Service Duration: This metric helps you review your courier and service choices to reduce the time it takes to deliver a parcel.
• Feedback: Data collected during the delivery process provides valuable insights for continuous improvement.

Delving deeper into the analytics in Track-POD, you'll find a comprehensive breakdown of the 'Delivery in Full' KPI. It provides a graphical representation of the reasons behind item rejections within orders. This level of granularity is valuable for pinpointing specific areas in your delivery process that require attention and refinement.

Another excellent offering is TransVirtual. It presents an intuitive DIFOT monitoring system complete with in-depth analytical capabilities. One standout feature is its capacity to automatically designate consignments as "Delivered In Full On Time" by relying on the specified delivery date and time.

The TransVirtual's DIFOT Reviews page also allows you to monitor delivery times and assess overall business efficacy. This detailed DIFOT reporting is more beneficial than what you can extract from spreadsheets.

Improving DIFOT and OTIF

You’ve got the data and are clear on the DIFOT meaning. Now, you can explore strategies to improve your score and customer satisfaction.

Load Planning

The primary objective of this strategy is to maximise your potential while accounting for specific requirements and constraints.

For example, sometimes parcels are moving while in transit due to poor placement within the delivery vehicle or perishable cargo is impacted by inadequate temperature control during transport. These can affect your DIFOT result.

Utilising AI-driven load planning can delegate this intricate task to artificial intelligence. It can optimise the fleet's potential and ensure goods remain protected during transit and arrive to customers in prime condition.

Load Check

In short, load check entails the systematic scanning of QR codes and barcodes on shipping labels, assuring the precise alignment of packages with their intended recipients.

Incorporating load check into your delivery workflow is a breeze with a mobile app for drivers. You can mandate a load check before each route to reinforce precision and reliability in your operations. For added assurance, you can even require a signature to confirm the successful completion of a load check.

Navigation

Route optimisation is a cornerstone of efficient deliveries. The driver’s role extends beyond simply adhering to predefined routes; it encompasses ensuring adherence to the GPS software's shortest and safest paths.

Several top-tier GPS applications are tailored to the unique needs of courier drivers. Many allow them to seamlessly switch between various navigation systems, selecting the most suitable one for their specific geographic area. It ensures they arrive at their destinations punctually and meet the critical "on-time delivery" KPI.

Contactless Delivery

Embracing contactless or ATL delivery services can significantly improve DIFOT and OTIF performance.

On one hand, it allows shoppers to receive orders without being home or interacting with drivers. It can enhance the overall customer experience.

Simultaneously, contactless delivery allows your business to define more expansive delivery timeframes. Drivers can capture a photograph of the package and populate a proof of delivery PDF to share with the customer.

Make DIFOT a Priority

DIFOT and OTIF are not just acronyms but vital metrics that evaluate efficient and reliable delivery standards. They represent the benchmarks by which many ecommerce businesses are assessed in relation to customer sentiment and operational excellence.

Embracing DIFOT and OTIF offers invaluable insights for monitoring and perfecting delivery operations. Utilising advanced tools enables you to scrutinise performance data, determine actionable insights and achieve delivery excellence.

Add DIFOT and OTIC to your KPIs and explore opportunities to improve your fulfilment operations.