Smart Steaming: A New Flexible Paradigm for Synchromodal Logistics

Slow steaming, i.e., the possibility to ship vessels at a significantly slower speed than their nominal one, has been widely studied and implemented to improve the sustainability of long-haul supply chains. However, to create an efficient symbiosis with the paradigm of synchromodality, an evolution of slow steaming called smart steaming is introduced. Smart steaming is about defining a medium speed execution of shipping movements and the real-time adjustment (acceleration and deceleration) of traveling speeds to pursue the entire logistic system’s overall efficiency and sustainability. For instance, congestion in handling facilities (intermodal hubs, ports, and rail stations) is often caused by the common wish to arrive as soon as possible. Therefore, smart steaming would help avoid bottlenecks, allowing better synchronization and decreasing waiting time at ports or handling facilities. This work aims to discuss the strict relationships between smart steaming and synchromodality and show the potential impact of moving from slow steaming to smart steaming in terms of sustainability and efficiency. Moreover, we will propose an analysis considering the pros, cons, opportunities, and risks of managing operations under this new policy

The multi-stage dynamic stochastic decision process with unknown distribution of the random utilities

We consider a decision maker who performs a stochastic decision process over a multiple number of stages, where the choice alternatives are characterized by random utilities with unknown probability distribution. The decisions are nested each other, i.e. the decision taken at each stage is affected by the subsequent stage decisions. The problem consists in maximizing the total expected utility of the overall multi-stage stochastic dynamic decision process. By means of some results of the extreme values theory, the probability distribution of the total maximum utility is derived and its expected value is found. This value is proportional to the logarithm of the accessibility of the decision maker to the overall set of alternatives in the different stages at the start of the decision process. It is also shown that the choice probability to select alternatives becomes a Nested Multinomial Logit model

Synchromodal logistics: An overview of critical success factors, enabling technologies, and open research issues

Abstract As supply chain management is becoming demand driven, logistics service providers need to use real-time information efficiently and integrate new technologies into their business. Synchromodal logistics has emerged recently to improve flexibility in supply chains, cooperation among stakeholders, and utilization of resources. We survey the existing scientific literature and real-life developments on synchromodality. We focus on the critical success factors of synchromodality and six categories of enabling technologies. We identify open research issues and propose the introduction of a new stakeholder, which takes on the role of orchestrator to coordinate and provide services through a technology-based platform

A Generalized Bin Packing Problem for parcel delivery in last-mile logistics

Abstract In this paper, we present a new problem arising at a tactical level of setting a last-mile parcel delivery service in a city by considering different Transportation Companies (TC), which differ in cost and service quality. The courier must decide which TCs to select for the service in order to minimize the total cost and maximize the total service quality. We show that the problem can be modeled as a new packing problem, the Generalized Bin Packing Problem with bin-dependent item profits (GBPPI), where the items are the parcels to deliver and the bins are the TCs. The aim of the GBPPI is to select the appropriate fleet from TCs and determine the optimal assignment of parcels to vehicles such that the overall net cost is minimized. This cost takes into account both transportation costs and service quality. We provide a Mixed Integer Programming formulation of the problem, which is the starting point for the development of efficient heuristics that can address the GBPPI for instances involving up to 1000 items. Extensive computational tests show the accuracy of the proposed methods. Finally, we present a last-mile logistics case study of an international courier which addresses this problem

The stochastic multi-path traveling salesman problem with dependent random travel costs.

The objective of the stochastic multi-path Traveling Salesman Problem is to determine the expected minimum-cost Hamiltonian tour in a network characterized by the presence of different paths between each pair of nodes, given that a random travel cost with an unknown probability distribution is associated with each of these paths. Previous works have proved that this problem can be deterministically approximated when the path travel costs are independent and identically distributed. Such an approximation has been demonstrated to be of acceptable quality in terms of the estimation of an optimal solution compared to consolidated approaches such as stochastic programming with recourse, completely overcoming the computational burden of solving enormous programs exacerbated by the number of scenarios considered. Nevertheless, the hypothesis regarding the independence among the path travel costs does not hold when considering real settings. It is well known, in fact, that traffic congestion influences travel costs and creates dependence among them. In this paper, we demonstrate that the independence assumption can be relaxed and a deterministic approximation of the stochastic multi-path Traveling Salesman Problem can be derived by assuming just asymptotically independent travel costs. We also demonstrate that this deterministic approximation has strong operational implications because it allows the consideration of realistic traffic models. Computational tests on extensive sets of random and realistic instances indicate the excellent efficiency and accuracy of the deterministic approximation

Comparative analysis of models and performance indicators for optimal service facility location

This study investigates the optimal process for locating generic service facilities by applying and comparing several well-known basic models from the literature. At a strategic level, we emphasize that selecting the right location model to use could result in a problematic and possibly misleading task if not supported by appropriate quantitative analysis. For this reason, we propose a general methodological framework to analyze and compare the solutions provided by several models to obtain a comprehensive evaluation of the location decisions from several different perspectives. Therefore, a battery of key performance indicators (KPIs) has been developed and calculated for the different models’ solutions. Additional insights into the decision process have been obtained through a comparative analysis. The indicators involve topological, coverage, equity, robustness, dispersion, and accessibility aspects. Moreover, a specific part of the analysis is devoted to progressive location interventions over time and identifying core location decisions. Results on randomly generated instances, which simulate areas characterized by realistic geographical or demographic features, are reported to analyze the models’ behavior in different settings and demonstrate the methodology’s general applicability. Our experimental campaign shows that the p-median model behaves very well against the proposed KPIs. In contrast, the maximal covering problem and some proposed back-up coverage models return very robust solutions when the location plan is implemented through several progressive interventions over time

A new open-source system for strategic freight logistics planning: the SYNCHRO-NET optimization tools

Globalization and e-commerce facilities have yielded in the recent years an incredibly huge increment of freight movements. Consequently, the underlying supply chains have become more and more complex to manage for the shipping companies, in terms of costs, distances, times, and environmental sustainability. SYNCHRO-NET, a H2020 European research project, aims to de-stress the international supply chains by fostering cost-effective and greener transportation alternatives. Besides other important actions, the SYNCHRO-NET framework provides an optimization and simulation toolset to support decision-making in freight logistics planning at a strategic level. The synchronized use of different transportation modes and the exploitation of smart steaming strategies for ship movements are the two main aspects considered in this innovative optimization system. In this paper, we present the optimization toolset developed, its contribution with respect to the existing platforms, and the experimental set-up implemented to evaluate its performance, usability, and effectiveness. The system is, in fact, currently under evaluation by several world-wide leading companies in freight logistics and transportation. However, the toolset potentialities go beyond the SYNCHRO-NET context, being the system an open-source project that makes use of open data formats and technologies

A chance-constraint approach for optimizing social engagement-based services

Social engagement is a novel business model whose goal is transforming final users of a service from passive components into active ones. In this framework, people are contacted by the decision-maker (generally a company) and they are asked to perform tasks in exchange for a reward. This paves the way to the interesting optimization problem of allocating the different types of workforce so as to minimize costs. Despite this problem has been investigated within the operations research community, there is no model that allows to solve it by explicitly and appropriately modeling the behavior of contacted candidates through consolidated concepts from utility theory. This work aims at filling this gap. We propose a stochastic optimization model including a chance constraint that puts in relation, under probabilistic terms, the candidate willingness to accept a task and the reward actually offered by the decision-maker. The proposed model aims at optimally deciding which user to contact, the amount of the reward proposed, and how many employees to use in order to minimize the total expected costs of the operations. A solution approach is proposed to address the formulated stochastic optimization problem and its computational efficiency and effectiveness are investigated through an extensive set of computational experiment

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms for Online Single-Machine Scheduling.

Online scheduling has been an attractive field of research for over three decades. Some recent developments suggest that Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques can effectively deal with online scheduling issues. Driven by an industrial application, in this paper we apply four of the most important RL techniques, namely Q-learning, Sarsa, Watkins’s Q(lambda), and Sarsa(lambda), to the online single-machine scheduling problem. Our main goal is to provide insights into how such techniques perform in the scheduling process. We will consider the minimization of two different and widely used objective functions: the total tardiness and the total earliness and tardiness of the jobs. The computational experiments show that Watkins’s Q(lambda) performs best in minimizing the total tardiness. At the same time, it seems that the RL approaches are not very effective in minimizing the total earliness and tardiness over large time horizons

Reinforcement Learning Algorithms for Online Single-Machine Scheduling.

Online scheduling has been an attractive field of research for over three decades. Some recent developments suggest that Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques can effectively deal with online scheduling issues. Driven by an industrial application, in this paper we apply four of the most important RL techniques, namely Q-learning, Sarsa, Watkins’s Q(lambda), and Sarsa(lambda), to the online single-machine scheduling problem. Our main goal is to provide insights into how such techniques perform in the scheduling process. We will consider the minimization of two different and widely used objective functions: the total tardiness and the total earliness and tardiness of the jobs. The computational experiments show that Watkins’s Q(lambda) performs best in minimizing the total tardiness. At the same time, it seems that the RL approaches are not very effective in minimizing the total earliness and tardiness over large time horizons