7.16 First/Last Mile
What is the First Mile?
Depending on the Industry it can mean many things:
* A manufacturer may consider the First Mile when their completed goods are shipped from the factory to their distribution hub.
* A retailer may consider the First Mile when manufactured goods are shipped from the suppliers’ distribution hub to the retailer’s distribution center.
* E-commerce may consider the First Mile to be when the goods are transferred to the courier that will deliver the goods to the customer’s home.
* But in short, First Mile is when the good travels through the first leg of the supply chain.
What is the Last Mile?
Last Mile refers to the last phase of the supply chain process for the delivery of goods or people.
Last Mile can range anywhere from a couple of blocks to a couple 100 miles. The distance is determined by the network of the supply chain for the specific goods being transported.
Last Mile for Transporting Goods For transporting goods, the last mile may be the route taken by an Amazon driver to drop off packages. The route taken by an autonomous robot to deliver food.
Last Mile for Transporting People The last mile may be the taxi used to go from the airport to arrive at a hotel. The e-bike rental used to go from the train station to work (final destination).
The concept of Last Mile was first introduced in the telecommunications industry. The industry’s Last Mile is the bandwidth that is delivered to the customer. The telecommunications network is like a “tree”. Bandwidth that travels in high capacity is known as “trunks”; the trunks branch out into “twigs” which serve as the Last Mile.
The Last Mile is a bandwidth bottleneck because there is a limit to how much data can be transferred to the customer. The Last Mile is also the most expensive because of all the equipment needed per customer and the number of customers that exist.
The concept of Last Mile first started with the telecommunications industry. But it has since branched out to other Industries. Most notably, the Transportation Industry
The remainder of this lecture will discuss First/Last Mile, and how it relates to transportation.