Modeling order guidelines to improve truckload utilization
Name
772137115-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
5.69 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ecba0c05f475ed86c88f8b25ad2b7682
Author(s) •
Banik, Jaya
Rinehart, Kyle
Advisor(s)
Jarrod Goentzel.
Date Issued
2011
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Freight vehicle capacity, whether it be road, ocean or air transport, is highly underutilized. This under-utilization presents an opportunity for companies to reduce their vehicular traffic and reduce their carbon footprint through greater supply chain integration. This thesis describes the impact of ordering guidelines on the transport efficiency of a large firm and how those guidelines and associated practices can be changed in order to gain better efficiency. To that end, we present three recommendations on improving the guidelines based on the shipment data analysis. First, we discuss the redundancy of one of the company's fill metrics based on a scatter plot analysis and a chi-square independence test. Second, we explore the impact of using linear programming to allocate SKUs to different shipment, highlighting the reduction in the number of shipments through better truck mixing. Finally, we divide the SKUs into three groups: cube-constrained, neutral, and weight-constrained. Based on this segmentation, we present a basic model that mixes different SKUs and helps a shipment to achieve a much higher utilization rate. The application of the last two findings can be further explored to address under-utilization in freight carriers across different industries.
Description
Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2011.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-37).
Subjects
Engineering Systems Division.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division
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