Field notes

Briefing Dispatchers Without Jargon

17 May 2026

Dispatchers already juggle customer windows, driver hours, and yard congestion. Findings that arrive as abstract indexes get set aside. Use the language of the board: which trucks, which customers, which hours.

Print three sheets for a briefing: yesterday’s idle stops mapped to sites, this week’s empty returns by corridor, and the five plates with the widest fuel variance. Walk the room through those sheets, not through a slide deck of definitions.

Agree one change the team can try for two weeks — for example, earlier arrival slots at a congested warehouse, or a standing backhaul call for Thursday returns from Rayong. Measure only that change on the next scorecard.

When the trial works, write the new rule into the depot’s daily checklist. Small, owned changes stick longer than broad efficiency slogans.