R&D and uncertainty in logistics software

In some companies, the R&D team is engaged in fundamental research of new technologies. The purpose of such research can be both the development of current processes and completely new verticals in business. For example, a few years ago, blockchain was such a technology.

We will immediately indicate that we are talking about something else. R&D in Delivery Club is a solution to applied problems. Our business is growing rapidly, the number of orders is growing, and most of our internal processes are based on data and algorithms. With an increase in the volume of input data, some algorithms cease to be efficient, and those components that we were completely satisfied with yesterday, today we often find inoperable.

As you may have guessed, such problems are often weakly deterministic, and, as a result, are accompanied by many uncertainties from all sides. Let's highlight the key ones:

Let's take a closer look at what we are faced with, and whether it is really difficult.

How to reach the goal

We always clearly understand the business goal - in which direction we plan to move, where we need to go. But it is far from always immediately clear how to approach this goal when it comes to research tasks. What strategy to take: through experiments or immediately a big rollout of features? Building simulated environments or experimenting in combat? The choice is large - the eyes run wide.

Difficulties in the development of logistics software

Also, quite recently, we started an experiment with a new ML model in which we are trying to improve Pickup time. In addition to the same data as for Last mile, we transmit the average bill of the order, thereby better predicting the cooking time. And this, as we know, is reflected in the entire forecast.

In the future, we have a full transition to forecasts from the ML model for all segments of the route.

In fact, there are still many places to improve forecasts, but now there is a problem that I would like to talk about.

We do not control the route that couriers choose to deliver the order. This may mean that we calculated the time on one way, and the courier chose another. Naturally, the forecast will be inaccurate. Perhaps one of the solutions will be hints to couriers which way to choose to control the time on a particular route.

In addition, snowfalls and frosts greatly affect the speed of movement. There are already plans to use their own weather service to adjust this speed.