Detrack Systems: Powering the Last Mile with Artificial Intelligence

Valentine’s day, 2013, two florists Dason Goh and Fanny See, anxiously hoped that their drivers would report back when the bouquets are delivered. Customers were calling but answers were unable to be given. Awaiting the statuses of the many Valentine’s day shipments was painful and the founders hankered for a real-time delivery system that could let their customers track consignments the way Uber customers track their cab arrivals, providing better visibility over the last mile of delivery.

After the episode, the partners realized that the last mile delivery experience could be very different and that customers should be given the ability to track their own deliveries in real-time. With this ideology, Detrack Systems was established in 2014 with Dason’s and Daniel’s technical capabilities and Fanny’s marketing proficiencies. The company went on to forge a first-of-its-kind real-time electronic proof of delivery system with automation capabilities. Since its founding, Detrack Systems has come a long way in enhancing shipping operations, emerging as the pioneers in the field with more than 13 million completed deliveries by their users from over 40 countries.

“With E-commerce serving as an essential ingredient in delivery systems, the balance between logistics fulfillment and cost of last mile delivery enhancements often hinder customer satisfaction regarding ease of operation and real-time visibility. Customers always seek live shipment information and timely delivery experiences while interacting with logistics service providers,” says Fanny See, Co-Founder, and CMO at Detrack Systems.

With the company’s mobile application that facilitates over 250 customizable options, logistics service providers can customize their offerings to suit the business model and deliver automated real-time customer interaction.

As a case in point, a third-party logistics service provider requiring to collect cash on delivery can directly enable this feature, which thereby prompts the delivery personnel to ensure that the correct cash amount has been entered and collected. Parallelly, customers can view the shipment moving towards them in real-time and reduce the possibility of missing the delivery when the personnel reaches customer’s doorstep.

Each of these features can be turned on and off as per necessity, allowing the service provider to make the best out of the Detrack suite of services.

One such third-party logistics (3PL) service provider with over 500 delivery vehicles lacked last mile delivery technology to tackle high volumes of delivery. Collaborating with Detrack, the 3PL provider was able to incorporate real-time delivery systems and provide real-time tracking for all their customers. With an immediate effect, the 3PL provider was able to double the order volume, attracting interest from several E-commerce giants and logistics contractors. Their customers, on the other hand, were provided with a seamless flow of tracking options that not only enhance the last mile delivery experience, but also improve their service portfolio with an array of additional functionalities. Detrack’s suite of APIs was able to provide seamless integration between businesses, customers, and the Detrack applications into a single ecosystem, streamlining the operations in real-time and imparting a continuous flow of information to the appropriate destination. The partnership with Detrack increased the 3PL logistics provider’s loyal customers and multiplied the overall revenue twofold within just six months of implementation.

To help companies meet their customers’ increased expectations, Detrack ingeniously employs geocoding methods (Geographical positioning using latitude and longitudes) to provide the unique experience of Tap To Track, where the Uber experience is brought into the last mile and customers could actually see their delivery come right to them with the estimated time of arrival countdown. Now, the company is bringing a new revolution to the last mile to solve the problem of inaccurate geocoding (the process of transforming a written address) with the newly launch world’s first geocoding artificial intelligence (AI) named George.

Addresses provided by customers are challenging to geocode, especially in the APAC region. For instance, the success rates of geocoding delivery addresses in Indonesia even by leading Maps providers are usually less than 50 percent. This problem has been identified as a stumbling block preventing companies in utilizing last mile technologies that can optimize their operations to achieve faster, cheaper, and more accurate deliveries.

“Consider the steps involved in the shipping process. When ordering from an online store, we need to provide a shipping address for delivery. However, even people staying in the same household may write the same address differently and despite the competencies of modern Geocoding systems, such variations are not easily recognizable. Leveraging George’s capabilities, our system is able to successfully translate uniquely written addresses into the correct geographical coordinates,” explains Dason Goh, CEO of Detrack Systems. The coordinates are then augmented into the delivery system, which in turn, allow delivery personnel to navigate to the correct destination. Additionally, George collects shipment information in real-time and consolidates the data, enabling future drivers to benefit from the route information obtained. The AI module learns progressively, strengthening its capabilities to host multiple logistics functionalities.

With over 600 million location data points and 13 million geocoded addresses in its database already, George is poised to become the enabler for the uprising of cheaper, faster and more accurate deliveries across APAC countries.

“Optimizing the delivery route in most of the APAC countries is a challenging endeavor. Inaccurate geographical positioning may result in discrepancies which stall the shipping process, causing frustrations at the customer’s end,” explains Fanny. Detrack’s AI module continuously feeds information into a collective database, discovering and mastering new geographical locations every time a job is completed on the Detrack platform. The data is then made available to multiple applications within Detrack’s product and service conglomerate; delivery drivers and logistics administrators can rightly flavor their services to deliver maximum value. As a technology and business enabler, Detrack has consummated their organizational vision — delivering happiness to all customers by providing the right information to the right people, at the right time.