Agent-based planning and control for groupage traffic

In this research and technology transfer project, the planning and control processes of the industrial partner Hellmann Worldwide Logistics GmbH & Co. KG are analyzed. An agent-based approach is presented to model current processes and to exploit the identified optimization potential. The developed system directly connects the information flow and the material flow as well as their interdependencies in order to optimize the planning and control in groupage traffic. The software system maps current processes to agents as system components and improves the efficiency by intelligent objects. To handle the high complexity and dynamics of logistics autonomous intelligent agents plan and control the way of represented objects through the logistic network by themselves and induce a flexible and reactive system behavior. We evaluate the implemented dispatching application by simulating the groupage traffic processes using effectively transported orders and process data provided by our industrial partner. Moreover, we modeled real world infrastructures and considered also the dynamics by the simulation of unexpected events and process disturbances. The results show that the system significantly decreases daily cost by reducing the required number of transport providers and shifting conventional orders to next days, which need no immediate delivery. Thus the system increases the efficiency and meets the special challenges and requirements of groupage traffic. Moreover, the system supports freight carriers and dispatchers with adequate tour and routing proposals. Computed tours were successfully validated by human dispatchers. Due to the promising results, Hellmann is highly interested in transferring the prototype to an application that optimizes the daily operations in numerous distribution centers. Finally, provide further research perspectives, and emphasize the advantages of the developed system in Industry 4.0 applications.