Optimal trip and load planning

October 16, 2009 by timbercommunity

How can companies maximize truck capacity utilization and at the same time plan logistics so that the burden on the environment and transport costs are reduced? A new software system couples cargo space utilization and trip planning.

The problem:
A company wants to deliver paper to five customers in Bavaria. The trip planning software currently used calculates that one truck will be
enough to cover the locations in central Bavaria if another truck on th Baden-Württemberg route takes over two of the deliveries. The problem
is that, although the trips have been optimized, the trucks are not fully loaded.

“Although software tools for trip planning and cargo space utilizatio are used, they are not combined, which means that only one aspect is
actually optimized,” explains Dr.-Ing. Bernhard van Bonn, Deputy Head of Department at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics
IML in Dortmund Stephan Sirrenberg from project partner M-Real expects the new system to reduce tonkilometers by 15 to 20 per cent. Every month the paper manufacture makes around 41,000 deliveries. 16,500 trucks transport around 345,000 tons of paper to customers in more than 100 countries.

Sources


Companies and organisations involved in this project