Negotiation models for logistic plarform planning and scheduling

Overview & Synopsis

This research work was initiated after an audit of a logistic platform belonging to a shoes distribution society. The final aim is to design a set of decision tools dedicated to smoothing the workload of the platform by using limited modifications of the arrival and departure dates concerning the suppliers and the customers deliveries, completed by additional workforce. Two millions of elementary articles (boxes of shoes) are crossing the platform each year with two seasonal peaks. We consider planning and scheduling levels, using for both levels Integer Linear Programming models, as generic as possible, but different for each level, where the unknown quantities correspond to box numbers and/or box volumes. We are concerned by three families of constraints : delay negotiations (essentially at the planning level), storage limitations (at both levels), social constraints associated with the human workforce activities (different at each levels and specific of the country laws). These genericmodels can be also used to compare various layout and work organisations of the platform, because the audit suggested that other organisation could decrease the number of times a pair of shoes is manipulated during its presence inside the platform.