Autonomous Courier and Express Services - Autonomous Coordination of competitive Participants in Courier and Express Services

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The goal of the proposed transfer project is the application of agent-based autonomous logistic processes for supporting the dispatcher of competing courier and express services. It was shown within the Collaborative Research Center 637 Autonomous Cooperating Logistic Processes - A Paradigm Shift and its Limitations (CRC 637), that autonomous logistic processes have many advantages in contrast to conventional approaches especially in dynamic and complex environments. Some research concepts have been successfully applied to groupage traffic in the CRC 637 transfer project T8 Autonomous groupage traffic.The aim of the transfer project is to apply research concepts and results developed in the CRC 637 subproject B4 Knowledge Management to courier and express services in order to improve and optimize the corresponding planning and controlling processes.The focus is on the adaptation and extension of mechanisms for the cooperation of software agents that are responsible for process planning and controlling to competitive scenarios. The mechanisms for interaction, communication, and coordination have to be applicable to selfish actors, who are paid by commission fees and are trying to maximize their own profit.Moreover, individual capabilities and preferences of the actors must be considered. The goal is to optimize the efficiency of the processes as well as to maximize the profits of all participants. Some additional cooperation between the agents must be provided by using extra depots where couriers can exchange and temporarily store orders.The multiagent-based simulation framework PlaSMA will be used for the modeling and simulation of autonomous logistic processes which was also developed within the subproject B4 of the CRC 637. We will show the intended increase in efficiency by comparing agent-based autonomous processes with the current processes of the industrial partner Tiramizoo and the mostly applied manually dispatching using real-life numbers. In addition, we will demonstrate the increased flexibility and robustness of autonomous logistic processes by simulating unexpected events in realistic scenarios based on real orders that are provided by Tiramizoo.The industrial partner Aimpulse Intelligent Systems, a consulting specialist for IT and logistic processes, provides its Know-how to develop a solution that requires only feasible software investments to be integrated within the current processes of courier and express services.