Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University
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Abstract
dc:descriptionThe subject of this dissertation is a location-planning-problem of a Polish parcel delivery service. The main objective of this task was to support the company in a long-term strategic investment decision by applying modern operation research techniques. From a mathematical point of view it is an application of a "location-routing-problem" in the field of "network design". During the last years the parcel delivery service which asked the author to be called by the pseudonym "LoGon" carried out a massive reorganisation of its logistic network. Before this reorganisation LoGon's network consisted of 47 depots which are in charge of providing pick-up and delivery service for customers in their surrounding area. In addition some of the depots are used as hubs to transfer and consolidate load of line hauls which connect the depots during the night. As part of the reorganisation LoGon was confronted with the problem which depots should be used in the future. LoGon provided the author a list with 52 locations in Poland at which either a depot was already in use or a new depot could be established. Exactly 22 of them were declared as optional. The task of this dissertation was to determine an optimal selection out of those 22 optional locations, such that operational costs of LoGon's logistic network were minimised on a long-term perspective. In comparison to other publications this problem showed several unusual constraints which have not yet been investigated: 1) The optimisation had to minimise investment costs and operational costs. 2) If a location is part of a solution it is to choose an optimal size and equipment for the depot at this location. This aspect was modelled with "depot classes". For each depot in a scenario it was necessary to choose among three classes and each of them had a significant impact on the daily operation schedule in the depot. 3) LoGon's couriers pick-up and deliver shipments at LoGon's customers. Both activities could be combined on a courier's tour, but this was not mandatory. This location-planning-problem was modelled as location-routing-problem (LRP). The most important characteristic of a LRP is a combination of a vehicle-routing-problem (VRP) with a locational decision. The classical version of a LRP was extended to take into account the special constraints of LoGon's situation as described above. The main results of the dissertation can be summarised as follows: 1) The model's complexity did not allow to find a mathematically exact solution. Instead a tailor-made VRPB-heuristic (vehicle-routing-problem-with-backhauling) was developed and applied to evaluate scenarios of the LRP. 2) The application of a LRP in the framework of a strategic location-planning is not undisputed, since the high complexity of a LRP is well known and often inadequate if available data are not precise enough. Therefore the LRP's extension was thoroughly analysed to check whether the extension was necessary and sufficient. Especially the new model was compared with traditional location planning methods which do not use the LRP. A very important part of the dissertation is the real-life application of the new method on LoGon's network. Hence a key result is that LoGon's location-planning-problem could be solved. It could be proved that the quality of solution provided by the new heuristic outperformed by far every proposal given by LoGon's logistics experts. All in all this dissertation represents a successful transfer of operations research to real-life business. It was shown that the application of an LRP as model including the new extensions was necessary and effective.
Degree
thesis:*- Grantor dc:publisher
- Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University
- Year dc:date
- 2001
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Lischak, Christoph
- Contributors dc:contributor
-
- Triesch, Eberhard
Subjects
dc:subject × 9Rights
dc:rights- Statement dc:rights
-
- info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
- Language dc:language
- ger