Transportation Planning/Vehicle Scheduling (TP/VS)

There are large potentials for cost savings in optimizing transportation operations in supply chains. Besides the financial importance, transportation processes have significant impact on service quality especially in industries where short delivery times and high service reliability are important features. In this regard, using optimization packages, which rely on optimization methods for solving planning problems, are instrumental. In the food industry for example there are typically few plants supplying large amount of geographically dispersed customers and consequently the expenses related to distribution activities are very large. An efficient distribution system is therefore vital in food distribution, not only to minimize the costs but also to make sure that the customers receive high-quality products.