Descartes Systems Group has developed technology to combine real-time planning with wireless mobile technology, under the name of Mobile Resource Management (MRM) 2.0. Functionality ranges from optimized planning to dispatch and automated vehicle location, integrated with mobile technology to meet a wide variety of global positioning satellite (GPS)-enabled requirements. The services can be used to manage private and dedicated fleets, sales forces, merchandisers and other types of mobile workers. Previously, said Descartes, route planning and MRM were two separate technologies and markets; neither was designed with the other in mind. The architecture of the two technologies allowed only for simple, non-real-time integration, because route-planning systems were batch-based and MRM interfaces used historically oriented performance data. The Descartes Resources in Motion Management System (RiMMS) converges route planning and MRM into a single technology stack, under the label MRM 2.0. In addition, Descartes announced availability of three MRM 2.0 applications: Route Planner, for large companies or complex routing problems; a pair of planning, dispatching and tracking systems known as Sales & Merchandise Management and Route Planner On-demand; and Descartes Area Planner, which addresses variability in volume, demand and customer locations encountered by couriers, small-package carriers and less-than-truckload operators.
