Vehicle scheduling and routing with trailers
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.