The last mile: where customer
experience & cost collide
53% of fulfillment costs are incurred in the last mile, making AI & ML automation investment critical
The last mile is where brand promise meets operational reality. Customers expect speed, accuracy, visibility, and flexibility, while shippers are forced to manage rising delivery costs, compressed schedules, inconsistent stop conditions, and constant exceptions. That tension is exactly why the last mile has become such a critical optimization point: it is often the most variable part of fulfillment, and one of the most expensive.
That’s where data science & machine learning come in.
OneRail turns last-mile complexity into a measurable decisioning problem—using operational data, predictive models, and AI-driven optimization to select the execution path that best balances cost, performance, and customer experience at scale.
The intelligence behind every delivery
Four core ML capabilities that work together to optimize every order.
Highlights:
- Better route plans based on real-stop behavior
- More reliable ETAs across store, DC & job-site deliveries
- Earlier signals when execution is trending off-plan
AI PANEL
The Leadership
Behind the Science
As OneRail’s founding CTO, David Daeschler had the vision to architect OneRail as an AI-native solution from the first line of code.
In 2023, he became OneRail’s EVP of Data Science & AI, focusing on the challenges AI, automation and other advanced technologies bring to the delivery experience. A thought leader in supply chain and logistics, David is featured here during a session with Doorstep.ai at Home Delivery World. The panel discussed how technology stops at the curb, and how the human element is still necessary in completing deliveries at the unit level.
The path to unified commerce
OneRail provides shippers with a path to unified commerce by connecting inventory, order and delivery decisions across every fulfillment node. Through data science, ML and a multimodal execution layer, OneRail helps retailers and wholesale distributors create one connected experience across stores, DCs, suppliers and delivery modes — turning fragmented operations into a more intelligent, proactive and scalable fulfillment model.
What retailers & wholesale distributors gain:
- One experience across inventory nodes (store, DC, supplier)
- One execution layer across modes (parcel, routed, on-demand)
- One ops playbook for proactive intervention — no need to put out fires
