The freight consolidation and containerization problem |
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Authors: | Hu Qin Zizhen Zhang Zhuxuan Qi Andrew Lim |
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Institution: | 1. School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, No. 1037, Luoyu Road, Wuhan, China;2. Department of Management Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong;3. School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China |
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Abstract: | In today’s global free market, third-party logistics providers (3PLs) are becoming increasingly important. This paper studies a problem faced by a 3PL operating a warehouse in Shanghai, China, under contract with a major manufacturer of children’s clothing based in the United States. At the warehouse, the 3PL receives textile parcel shipments from the suppliers located in China; each shipment is destined for different retail stores located across the United Sates. These shipments must be consolidated and loaded into containers of varying sizes and costs, and then sent along shipping routes to different destination ports. An express company, such as UPS and FedEx, unloads the shipments from the containers at the destination ports and distributes them to their corresponding stores or retailers by parcel delivery. The objective is to find an allocation that minimizes the total container transportation and parcel delivery costs. We formulate the problem into an integer programming model, and also propose a memetic algorithm approach to solve the problem practically. A demonstration of a good solution to this problem was a decisive factor in the awarding of the contract to the 3PL in question. |
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Keywords: | Packing Freight consolidation Containerization Memetic algorithm Third-party logistics |
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