Determination of cutoff time for express courier services: a genetic algorithm approach

Abstract

As the result of an explosive growth in e‐tailing, telemarketing, and television home‐shopping industries, the demand for the direct shipment of purchased goods by express couriers has increased over the last several years. The success of an express courier service often depends heavily on the direct marketing firm's ability to extend its cutoff time (deadline) for direct home deliveries coordinated by service centers near customers. Such an extension of cutoff time, however, may prolong consolidation holding time at the consolidation terminal and subsequently disrupt the timely delivery of products to customers. To make a trade‐off between cutoff time extension and delivery delays, we propose an integer programming model and its genetic algorithm solution procedure that allows express couriers, such as UPS, FedEx, and DHL, to maximize their profit generated by direct home deliveries. To demonstrate the practicality and efficiency of the proposed model and solution procedure, we conducted a case study involving an express courier in Korea.

Artificial intelligence in supply chain management: theory and applications

“…These problems include: vehicle routing and scheduling (Malmborg 1996, Potvin et al 1996, Chen et al 1998, Park 2001; minimum spanning tree Gen 1998, 1999); delivery and pickup (Jung and Haghani 2000); bus network optimisation (Bielli et al 2002); and locationallocation problems (Hosage and Goodchild 1986, Jaramillo et al 2002, Min et al 2005. In addition, a GA was employed to solve well-known logistics and purchasing problems involving facility layout (Tam andChan 1998, Balamurugan et al 2006); pallet loading (Fontanili et al 2000); inventory control (Disney et al 2000, Haq andKannan 2006); container loading Bortfeldt 1997, Bortfeldt andGehring 2001); material handling (Wu and Appleton 2002), delivery reliability assurance (Antony et al 2006); freight consolidation (Min et al 2006a, b); supplier selection (Rao 2007); and express courier services (Ko et al 2007). …”

Best Performance Frontiers for Buy-Online-Pickup-in-Store order fulfilment

“…For example, the retailer 'PrettyLittleThing' had to suspend its advertised next day delivery service for weeks as its fulfilment capacity could not match the very high demand (Stevens, 2018). To demonstrate the contribution of our work, we discuss the managerial insights and implications of the When designing BOPS service offerings, retailers may be tempted to set the order cut-off time and deadline by rules of thumb considering factors such as business opening and closing hours or customer lifestyles in the operating regions (Ko et al, 2007). For example, the deadline for same day BOPS services is typically 12 noon, 2pm or 4pm in the UK when customers finish work and then visit stores to collect their orders.…”

Pricing and Collaboration in Last Mile Delivery Services

“…The service centers are used as a transshipment and temporary storage facility connecting customers to a consolidation terminal. At the consolidation terminal, customer orders are consolidated into larger shipments, mixed and then loaded onto delivery trucks for local deliveries [25]. This study mainly focuses on the last mile of the final step of the shipment process, which is depicted in Figure 2.…”