I-Corps: Smart and Holistic Agent Management System

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛影响是开发一个包含地理、天气和行为信息的软件系统，为物流操作产生及时、交互和持续的改进结果。该工具面向食品和饮料分销商、商业和服务公司，以及零售行业中那些需要准时送货并具有极好的可预测性的人。送货上门的业务约占零售业总物流成本的53%。该项目将为最后一英里的快递行业开发一个解决方案，预计到2025年，该行业将达到550亿美元的规模。设想的解决方案将通过降低成本和最大限度地利用资源来提高客户满意度和强大的经济价值。这个i-Corps项目将使用分层和分布式决策，使用网络建模、基于代理的模拟和机器学习来推进和自动化城市环境中车辆的组织、调度和路线。这些分层决策过程可以帮助企业优化装货和分拣、调度和路线选择操作。与现有方案不同，现有方案只有部分接近最优的路线，不能有效地从供应链的不同元素(如客户、司机等)获得反馈，建议的技术方案还包括与调度和路线同步的装箱、装载和分拣优化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is to develop a software system with geographical, weather, and behavioral information to produce timely, interactive, and continuous improvement results for logistics operations. The tool is aimed at food and beverage distributors, business and service companies, and those in the retail industry who need on-time delivery with an excellent level of predictability. Home-delivery operations account for around 53% of total logistics costs in the retail industry. This project will develop a solution for the last-mile delivery industry, predicted to be a $55 B industry by 2025. The envisioned solution will result in increasing customer satisfaction and strong economic value by reducing costs and maximizing utilization of resources.This I-Corps project will advance and automate the organization, dispatching, and routing of vehicles in urban environments using hierarchical and distributed decision-making using network modeling, agent-based simulation, and machine learning. These hierarchical decision-making processes can aid businesses in optimizing loading and sorting, dispatching, and routing operations, . Unlike existing schemes that have only partial near-optimal routing, and do not effectively take feedback from the different elements of the supply chain (e.g., customers, drivers, etc.), the proposed technology scheme also includes packing, loading and sorting optimization in synchronization with dispatching and routing.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.