Vehicle scheduling and routing with trailers

• US 20080077464A1
• Filed: 09/22/2006
• Published: 03/27/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/22/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Eckert, J. Christoph, Schumm, Carsten G., Engelmann, H. Thomas, Gottlieb, Jens
• Application Number:
  US11/525,890
• Publication Number:
  US 20080077464A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/08 Logistics, e.g. warehousing, loading or distribution; Inventory or stock management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders

Abstract

Embodiments of the invention include a system for scheduling the shipment of a set of products. The shipment may be loaded into a set of vehicle combinations, which are composed of a combination of vehicles and trailers. The system may include attempts to fill each vehicle and trailer in each vehicle combination. The system may include evaluating a set of constraints on the shipment. The process may include an optimization process to generate the most cost effective use of the available vehicle combinations.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

selecting a first transportation order;

selecting a vehicle combination to assign the first transportation order;

assigning the first transportation order to the vehicle combination;

selecting a first trailer in the vehicle combination; and

assigning the first transportation order to the first trailer.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

checking a vehicle combination graph to determine if a second trailer or a vehicle can be added to the vehicle combination.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

removing a trailer from a vehicle combination based on a vehicle combination graph.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

executing a move operation to add the first transportation order to a transportation plan.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

estimating a cost of a transportation plan based on trailer utilization.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein a vehicle combination indudes a vehicle and a trailer.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

building a vehicle combination graph.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

optimizing trailer assignments in a transportation plan.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sequencing loading and unloading activities for a trailer.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

scheduling loading and unloading activities for a trailer.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining if a route is feasible for the vehicle combination.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

selecting a compartment of the first trailer; and

assigning the transportation order to the compartment.

13. The method of 4, further comprising:

optimizing the transportation plan using any one of a local search, a tabu search, simulated annealing, evolutionary algorithms, mixed integer linear programming or constraint programming.

14. A system comprising:

a demand order generating module, to generate a set of demand orders; and

a transportation determination module to receive the set of demand orders, generate a set of transportation orders and a transportation plan having transportation orders assigned to vehicle combinations and trailers.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a vehicle combination graph builder to generate a vehicle combination graph.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a cost estimator to determine a cost for the transportation plan including trailer usage costs.

19. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a constraint checker to determine if a transportation order assigned to a trailer meets applicable constraints.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising:

a user interface module to display a set of transportation orders organized by vehicle and trailer.

16. The system of 15, wherein the vehicle combination graph plots transitions between feasible vehicle combinations.

17. The system of 14, further comprising:

an optimizer to optimize the transportation plan including assignment of transportation orders to trailers.

21. A machine readable medium having a set of instructions stored therein which when executed cause a machine to perform a set of operations comprising:

receiving a set of transportation orders;

iterating through permutations of the set of transportation orders distributed across trailers of a set of vehicle combinations; and

identifying a configuration that meets a set of predetermined constraints related to the trailers and the set of transportation orders.

22. The machine readable medium of claim 21, having a further set of instructions stored therein which when executed cause a machine to perform a set of operations further comprising:

identifying a least cost configuration for the set of transportation orders distributed across trailers of the set of vehicle combinations.

23. The machine readable medium of claim 21, having a further set of instructions stored therein which when executed cause a machine to perform a set of operations further comprising:

displaying the set of transportation orders organized by vehicle and trailer.

24. The machine readable medium of claim 21, having a further set of instructions stored therein which when executed cause a machine to perform a set of operations further comprising:

optimizing the configuration for vehicle combination routing and scheduling.

25. An apparatus comprising:

means for receiving a set of transportation orders;

means for iterating through permutations of the transportation orders distributed across trailers of a set of vehicles; and

means for identifying configurations that meet a set of predetermined criteria related to the trailers and the set of transportation orders.

26. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising:

means for generating a configuration of the set of transportation orders distributed across trailers.

27. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising:

means for displaying the set of transportation orders organized by vehicle and trailer.

28. The apparatus of claim 25, further comprising:

means optimizing a placement of the set of transportation orders across trailers of a vehicle combination during each iteration.