Improving network design through demand analysis for an express package delivery company

提供快递包裹递送服务的加拿大公司Purolator必须改善其在 不断立足于让客户满意，同时在不断增长的情况下保持其效率 竞争激烈、电子商务服务扩容等挑战。该公司尤其是 有兴趣分析执行业务的替代方法，以降低其成本，同时 提高服务质量。这些替代方法将涉及重新配置其当前网络 设施的问题。这个为期六个月的Engage项目是朝着这个方向迈出的第一步。我们将把重点放在当地 蒙特利尔网络。我们将首先使用过去几年提供给我们的数据来分析需求 那家公司。这将使我们能够描述空间和时间上的趋势(在每周内和每周内 年)，并确定更好地利用可用产能的机会。我们将假设只有 一个地区性枢纽，位置已知，并有多个现有航站楼。作为Engage项目的一部分，我们 我将分析涉及重新配置终端的场景，特别是关闭其中一些终端和 将他们的业务转移到枢纽或其他码头。为此，我们将开发一个混合整数 表示“灵活的”轴辐式网络中设施选址决策的规划模型，其中 码头可以关闭，它们的运营可以重新定位。

Purolator, a Canadian company offering express package delivery services, has to improve its operations on a continuous basis in order to satisfy its customers, while maintaining its efficiency in the face of ever-growing challenges such as fierce competition and the expansion of e-commerce services. The company is particularly interested in the analysis of alternative ways to perform its operations that would reduce its costs, while improving its quality of service. These alternative approaches would involve reconfiguring its current network of facilities. This six-month Engage project is a first step in this direction. We will focus on the local area network of Montreal. We will first analyze the demand using data from the last years made available to us by the company. This will allow us to characterize trends over space and time (within each week and within each year) and to identify opportunities for better usage of the available capacity. We will assume that there is only one regional hub with a known location and a number of existing terminals. As part of the Engage project, we will analyze scenarios that involve reconfiguring the terminals, specifically closing some of them and relocating their operations to the hub or to other terminals. To this end, we will develop a mixed-integer programming model representing the facility location decisions in a "flexible" hub-and-spoke network, where terminals can be closed and their operations relocated.