Supply Chain Management and Services

In the field of transportation and logistics, many new delivery concepts are conceivable due to the availability of sensor and real-time data. Automated booking processes, the availability of big data, e.g. real-time traffic information, inventory levels of products at the customers’ site either in households, stores or in waste bins - to name a few examples - opens up possibilities for intelligent solution concepts in dynamic and stochastic vehicle routing, e.g. vendor managed inventory combined with routing. Interweaving concepts from vehicle routing and demand management can increase profitability of transportation services, and the availability of online information to generate accurate information models changes the delivery concepts. Ideas of the physical internet and crowd-shipping, roaming delivery locations, delivery robots and drones can change the vehicle routing planning philosophy in urban logistics, especially when client-centered and green objectives are also of relevance.

Furthermore, we run an external module of the Josef-Ressel-Centre for Adaptive Optimization in Dynamic Environments. In this centre, solution techniques for intra-logistical problems in the field of steel logistics will be developed.