Route optimization
Also known as: routing, stop sequencing
Choosing the order of stops on a technician's day to minimize drive time and missed windows.
Route optimization is the practice of sequencing a technician's stops so that drive time, fuel cost, and missed appointment windows are all minimized. For a fixed list of stops on a single day, this is a Traveling Salesman variant — solvable with heuristics for the sizes most service businesses see. For routing decisions made before all stops are known, it's a continuous re-planning problem that takes new requests, traffic, and crew availability into account as the day progresses.
Good route optimization isn't just about driving in a circle. It accounts for time-windowed appointments (some customers can only be served between 8am and 10am), skill matching (some jobs need a specific certification), part availability (you can't do an install without the parts on the truck), and customer-preference constraints (regulars who want the same tech). The output is a per-technician day plan that the dispatcher can override but rarely needs to.
Related terms
Dispatch
Assigning jobs to specific technicians or crews on specific days, with the right skills, parts, and routing in place.
Field service management
Software for coordinating work that happens at customer sites — scheduling, dispatch, quotes, invoicing, and crew tracking.
Work order
The structured record of a job to be performed — what's needed, when, where, by whom, and at what price.