Volume 3 Issue 1 pp. 35-42 January, 2013


Route activity tracking and management using available technology


< Sam Yousef Khoury


Small organizations that maintain their own fleet and make their own deliveries are responsible for ensuring their drivers are utilizing the most efficient routes while delivering products to their customers. Furthermore, efficient delivery requires that drivers spend as little time as possible dropping off and picking up products, since these activities are referred to as “non-value added activities,” although they are necessary tasks in the order cycle process. To aid in reducing order cycle times, large organizations that can afford it have employed transportation management systems. Unfortunately, small organizations with limited resources are less likely to adopt transportation management systems, despite the need for such automation. One solution is to use available productivity software to track and manage driver route activity in an effort to improve and maintain driver productivity by reducing non-value time and identifying optimal routes. This paper will outline how office productivity software such as Microsoft® Access can meet the needs of small organizations with limited resources by describing the development and use of a route activity database that employs an easy-to-use multi-user interface. This paper also includes the details of the underlying infrastructure and the user interface.


DOI: 10.5267/j.ijiec.2011.08.014

Keywords: Route activity tracking, Route activity management, Available technology

References

Campbell, A.M. & Savelsbergh, M.W. (2005). Decision support for consumer direct grocery initiatives. Transportation Science, 39(3), 313-327.

Campbell, A. M., Vandenbussche, D., & Hermann, W. (2008). Routing for relief efforts. Transportation Science, 42(2), 127-145.

Ceselli, A., Righini, G., Salani, M. (2009). Column generation algorithm for a rich vehicle-routing problem. Transportation Science, 43(1), 56-69.

Chen, J.F. & Wu, T.H. (2006). Vehicle routing problem with simultaneous deliveries and pickups. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 57, 579–587.

Food Logistics (2011). A phased approach to dynamic routing. Retrieved from http://www.foodlogistics.com/print/Food-Logistics/A-Phased-Approach-To-Dynamic-Routing/1$2595

Irnich, S. (2008). A unified modeling and solution framework for vehicle routing and local search-based metaheuristics. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 20(2), 270–287.

Kant, G., Jacks, M. & Aantjes, C. (2008). Coca-Cola Enterprises optimizes vehicle routes for efficient product delivery. INFORMS, Interfaces, 38(1), 40-50.

McAndrew, S.T., Anumba, C.J., & Hassan, T.M. (2005). Potential use of real-time data capture and job-tracking technology in the field. Facilities Journal, 23(1/2), 31-46.

Michalewicz, Z. & Fogel, D. (2002). How to solve it: Modern heuristics. New York: Springer-Verlag

Moura, A. & Oliveira, J.F. (2009). An integrated approach to the vehicle routing and container loading problems. OR Spectrum, 31, 775-800.

Ng, W.L., Leung, S.C., Lam, J.K. & Pam, S.W. (2008). Petrol delivery tanker assignment and routing: A case study in Hong Kong. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 59, 1191-1200.

Nowak, M. Ergun, O. & White, C. (2008). Pickup and delivery with split loads. Transportation Science, 42(1), 32-43.

Ohlmann, J.W., Fry, M.J, & Thomas, B.W. (2008). Route design for lean production systems. Transportation Science, 42( 3), 52-370.

Rand, G. K. (2009). The life and times of the savings method for vehicle routing problems. Orion, 25(2), 125-145.

Ropke, S. & Pisinger, D. (2006). An adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic for the pickup and delivery problem with time windows. Transportation Sciences, 40(4), 455-472.

Sungur, I., Ordóñez, F., Dessouky, M. (2008). A robust optimization approach for the capacitated vehicle routing problem with demand uncertainty. IIE Transactions, 40(5), 509-523.

Tang, L., & Wang, X. (2008). An iterated local search heuristic for the capacitated prize-collecting travelling salesman problem. The Journal of the Operational Research Society, 59(5), 590-599.

Tarantilis, C.D., Zachariadis, E. E., & Kiranoudis, C. (2008). A hybrid guided local search for the vehicle-routing problem with intermediate replenishment facilities. INFORMS Journal on Computing, 20(1), 54-168.

Turner, W.C., Mize, J.H., Case, K.E., & Nazemetz, J.W. (1993). Introduction to industrial and systems engineering. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Ursani, Z., Essam, D., Cornforth, D., & Stocker, R. (2009). Introducing the localized genetic algorithm for small scale capacitated vehicle routing problems, INFORMS, 47(2), 133-149.