Shenle Pan

Interconnected logistic networks and protocols: simulation-based efficiency assessment

Logistic networks intensely use means of transportation and storage facilities to deliver goods. However, these logistic networks are still poorly interconnected and this fragmentation is responsible for a lack of consolidation and thus efficiency. To cope with the seeming contradiction of just-in-time deliveries and challenging emissions targets, a major improvement in supply networks is sought here. This new organisation is based on the universal interconnection of logistics services, namely a Physical Internet where goods travel in modular containers for the sake of interconnection in open networks. If from a logical point of view, merging container flows should improve efficiency, no demonstration of its potential has been carried out prior to the here reported research. To reach this potentiality assessment goal, we model the asynchronous shipment and creation of containers within an interconnected network of services, find the best path routing for each container and minimise the use of transportations means. To carry out the demonstration and assess the associated stakes, we use a set of actual flows from the fast-moving consumer goods sector in France. Various transportation protocols and scenarios are tested, revealing encouraging results for efficiency indicators such as CO2 emissions, cost, lead time, delivery travel time, and so forth. As this is a first work in the field of flows transportation, the simulation model and experiment exposes many further research avenues.

Perspectives of inventory control models in the Physical Internet

We reveal a new research field of inventory management in the Physical Internet Network.We identify the particularities of inventory management in the Physical Internet Network.We define the initial criteria for selecting replenishment point in the Physical Internet Network.We assess the performance of the criteria under (Q,R) policy via simulation study.The results show that criteria have very different performance and sensitivity to the logistics cost. Classical supply chain design relies on a hierarchical organization to store and distribute products over a given geographical area. Within this framework, a stock shortage affects the entire downstream section of the supply chain, regardless of the stocks kept in other locations. With the implementation of the Physical Internet (PI) approach, of which the aim is to integrate logistics networks into a universal, interconnected system, inventories can be divided among shared hubs that serve the market and allow for Source Substitution. This contribution measures the impact of such an organization on inventory levels and costs, with service level being set as a constraint. The analysis focuses on the resource levels (transportation and inventory) required by the current supply model and by the Physical Internet system to serve a market with a (Q,R) stock policy. Starting with two supply models and with the definition of cost models, as well as inventory policy, the work is based on computer simulation. The analysis tested three different categories of criteria to allow dynamic source selection when an order is placed: Source Substitution, Minimum Ratio and Minimum Sum. Source Substitution, one of the simplest criteria, was determined to be the most efficient and stable according to different scenarios. The main intent of this paper is to define the new research question related to inventory management in a Physical Internet Network and to provide a view of how the PI affects traditional inventory control policies.

Physical Internet and Interconnected Logistics Services: Research and Applications

Within the 55-year history of International Journal of Production Research, the field of logistics and supply chain management has witnessed tremendous paradigm shifts. The field has motivated a wealth of highly studied topics in production research. Many influential articles related to the topic are published by the Journal. The most cited articles include: Goyal (1977), Shih (1980) and Hill (1999) focusing on inventory control models in supply chain; Krikke, Bloemhof-Ruwaard, and Van Wassenhove (2003) studying close-loop supply chain design; Gunasekaran and Kobu (2007) and Arzu Akyuz and Erman Erkan (2010) being interested in supply chain performance measurement; Vachon (2007), Zhu and Sarkis (2007) and Zhu, Sarkis, and Lai (2012) investigating green supply chain management; Rubio, Chamorro, and Miranda (2008) paying attention to reverse logistics; and Bhamra, Dani, and Burnard (2011) to supply chain resilience. These articles cover a broad spectrum of important scientific issues of logistics and supply chain management research. Recent rapid developments have shown greater attention and interests than ever before. This special issue of Physical Internet and interconnected logistics services: research and applications, is one of the continuing efforts of this Journal in logistics and supply chain research. The special issue is devoted to Physical Internet a recent concept of breakthrough innovation aiming to improve by an order of magnitude the economical, environmental and societal efficiency and sustainability of the way physical objects are moved, deployed, realised, supplied, designed and used. The term ‘Physical Internet’ was for the first time mentioned in the domain of logistics in June 2006, on the front page of The Economist (Markillie 2006) issue devoted to a state-of-the-art review of logistics practice. Even though it made the front page, the term was not further elaborated in any of the articles. Professor Benoit Montreuil, then in the CIRRELT Centre at Université Laval (Québec, Canada), was enthralled by the Physical Internet term, its potential meaning and significance. Financed through his Canada Research Chair in Business Engineering and his Canadian Discovery grant on supply network innovation, he engaged in a multi-year journey devoted to creating a vision exploiting for physical objects the metaphor of the Digital Internet that has revolutionised information and communications technologies (ICT), the ICT industry and eventually industry and society at large. As he was shaping the vision of what a Physical Internet could be, he had to investigate why in the world should be challenged the current integrated paradigm at the core of logistics and supply chains, instead of keeping on relying on a continuous improvement path. His journey has lead him in 2009 to start openly publishing on line gradually evolving versions of the Physical Internet Manifesto with several contributions. Professors Éric Ballot (Centre de Gestion Scientifique, Mines ParisTech, France) and Russell Meller (CELDI, U. Arkansas, U.S.A.) were first to join the Physical Internet in 2009. The team pioneered research on the Physical Internet by initiating and leading high-impact research projects. Professors Ballot and Montreuil lead an OpenFret France-based project towards contributing to the conceptualisation and realisation of a Physical Internet in 2010. Professor Rémy Glardon joined them in leading a France-Canada-Switzerland project sponsored by the PREDIT programme in France, aiming to simulate the potential contribution of the Physical Internet to the resolution of the logistics challenges, with a focus on application to fast moving goods logistics in France in 2011 and 2012. In the U.S.A., Professor Meller successfully lead with Professor Kim Ellis (Virginia Tech), Bill Ferrell (Clemson U.) and Phil Kaminsky (UC Berkeley), a NSF-sponsored project in the CELDI research centre to assess the potentiality of the Physical Internet in North America. Professors Meller and Montreuil lead a project supported by MHI in America, focused on Physical Internet facilities design. Professor Benoit Montreuil introduced a comprehensive vision for a Physical Internet, delineated the concept in a mosaic of thirteen interlaced characteristics, positioned to meet the Logistics Sustainability Grand Challenge (Montreuil 2009–2012). The essence of the PI Manifesto was formally introduced as a journal paper in Montreuil (2011). Europe has been a fertile ground for Physical Internet research and innovation. Through the pioneering initiative of Sergio Barbarino from the Supply Network Innovation Centre of Procter & Gamble, who teamed up with Professors Ballot, Meller and Montreuil, a first PI project was submitted to the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission, leading to multi-million

Using taxis to collect citywide E-commerce reverse flows: a crowdsourcing solution

funding by the commission. Focused on the consumer goods industry, the

Mitigating supply chain disruptions through interconnected logistics services in the Physical Internet

The popularity of round-the-clock online shopping urges the rapid growth of e-commerce, which substantially generates additional parcels for the distribution on the forward side. On the other hand, collecting the returned goods on the revere side is also increasingly becoming a preoccupation, particularly in the crowd and dense metropolitan areas. Inspired by the concepts of Crowdsourcing and Physical Internet, we propose an innovative solution to collect the e-commerce returned goods from final consumption points back to retailers. As an alternative to traditional ways, this solution delivers the returned goods and passengers in an integrated way by leveraging the extra loading capacity and constant mobility provided by taxis that are already reserved to transport passengers. Thus, it could simultaneously migrate the negative economical, environmental and social impacts of reverse flows management. To address the issue of the returned goods collection, we first conduct the qualitative and quantitative study, and further investigate the feasibility and viability of the solution based on three real-world datasets, which consist of locations of shops, a road network and a large-scale trajectory data generated by over 7000 taxis in a month in the city of Hangzhou, China. Three collection strategies are proposed and evaluated. Experimental results generate several useful insights into the implementability and managerial issues of the proposed solution.

Using the Crowd of Taxis to Last Mile Delivery in E-commerce: a Methodological Research

This paper investigates the resilience of inventory models using interconnected logistics services in the Physical Internet (PI). With traditional supply chain network design, companies define and optimise their own logistics networks, resulting in current logistics systems being a set of independent heterogeneous logistics networks. The concept of PI aims to integrate independent logistics networks into a global, open, interconnected system. Prior research has shown that new inventory models enabled by and applied to PI could help reduce inventory levels thanks to its high flexibility. Continuing along these lines, this paper examines how inventory models applying PI deal with disruptions at hubs and plants. To attain this, a single product inventory problem with uncertain demands and stochastic supply disruptions is studied. A simulation-based optimisation model is proposed to determine inventory control decisions. The results suggest that the PI inventory model, with greater agility and flexibility, outperforms the current classic inventory models in terms of resilience. Moreover, the difference in performance increases when the product value, penalty costs and disruption frequency increases. This paper indicates a novel approach to build a resilient supply network.

Using Customer-related Data to Enhance E-grocery Home Delivery

Crowdsourcing is gathering increased attention in freight transport areas, mainly applied in internet-based services to city logistics. However, scientific research, especially methodology for application is still rare in the literature. This paper aims to fill this gap and proposes a methodological approach of applying crowdsourcing solution to Last Mile Delivery in E-commerce environment. The proposed solution is based on taxi fleet in city and a transport network composed by road network and customer self-pickup facilities that are 24/7 shops in city, named as TaxiCrowdShipping system. The system relies on a two-phase decision model, first offline taxi trajectory mining and second online package routing and taxi scheduling. Being the first stage of our study, this paper introduces the framework of the system and the decision model development. Some expected results and research perspectives are also discussed.

Allocation of Transportation Cost & CO2 Emission in Pooled Supply Chains Using Cooperative Game Theory

Purpose: The development of e-grocery allows people to purchase food online and benefit from home delivery service. Nevertheless, a high rate of failed deliveries due to the customer’s absence causes significant loss of logistics efficiency, especially for perishable food. This paper proposes an innovative approach to use customer-related data to optimize e-grocery home delivery. The approach estimates the absence probability of a customer by mining electricity consumption data, in order to improve the success rate of delivery and optimize transportation. Design/methodology/approach: The methodological approach consists of two stages: a data mining stage that estimates absence probabilities, and an optimization stage to optimize transportation. Findings: Computational experiments reveal that the proposed approach could reduce the total travel distance by 3% to 20%, and theoretically increase the success rate of first-round delivery approximately by18%-26%. Research limitations/implications: The proposed approach combines two attractive research streams on data mining and transportation planning to provide a solution for e-commerce logistics. Practical implications: This study gives an insight to e-grocery retailers and carriers on how to use customer-related data to improve home delivery effectiveness and efficiency. Social implications: The proposed approach can be used to reduce environmental footprint generated by freight distribution in a city, and to improve customers’ experience on online shopping. Originality/value: Being an experimental study, this work demonstrates the effectiveness of data-driven innovative solutions to e-grocery home delivery problem. The paper provides also a methodological approach to this line of research.

Open tracing container repositioning simulation optimization: a case study of FMCG supply chain

The sustainability of supply chain,both economical and ecological, has attracted intensive attentions of academic and industry. It is proven in former works that supply chain pooling given by horizontal cooperation among several independent supply chains create a new common supply chain network that could reduce the costs and the transport CO2 emissions. In this regard, this paper introduces a scheme to share in a fairly manner the savings. After a summary of the concept of pooled-supply-networks optimization and CO2 emission model, we use cooperative game theory as the cooperative mechanism for the implementation of the horizontal pooling. Since we proved the related pooling game to be super-additive, a fair and stable allocation of common gain in transportation cost and CO2 emission is calculated by Shapley Value concept. Through a case study, the results show that supply chains pooling can result in reductions of both transportation cost and carbon emissions, and that the increase of carbon-tax rate gives enterprises more incentives for the implementation of such pooling scheme.

Specifying Self-organising Logistics System: Openness, Intelligence, and Decentralised Control

The industry and retail chain use a huge number of low cost assets such as pallets, crates, plastic boxes… Until now the lack of affordable technology, in comparison with the cost of a single asset, stopped efforts to manage them in open loop supply chain (where the assets are not coming back to the sender after usage). As part of a project to implement an affordable and efficient communication technology and to publish the information from the logistics assets used in Fast Moving Consumer Goods’ supply chains, we demonstrate with a simulation optimization approach the benefit of knowing the position of the assets. The published events from the logistics support are used to optimize their repositioning. A specific simulation optimization model is presented and the results are commented.