Sequencing the processing of incoming mail to match an outbound truck delivery schedule

Authors:
Qian Wang;Rajan Batta;Robert J. Szczerba
Affiliations:
Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3E6;Department of Industrial Engineering, University at Buffalo (SUNY), 342 Bell Hall, Buffalo, NY;Advanced Technology Department, Lockheed Martin Systems Integration, 802 St. Rt. 17C M/D 0210, Owego, NY
Venue:
Computers and Operations Research
Year:
2005

Citing 4
Cited 1

Equipment selection and machine scheduling in general mail facilities

Management Science
Solving large-scale tour scheduling problems

Management Science
Scheduling workforce and workflow in a high volume factory

Management Science
Staff scheduling at the United States postal service

Computers and Operations Research

Integrated Production and Outbound Distribution Scheduling: Review and Extensions

Operations Research

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.01

Visualization

Abstract

This paper considers the problem of sequencing the processing of incoming mail in a processing and distribution center (P&DC) to match a given outbound truck delivery schedule. Mail arrives at a P&DC from local associate offices or remote P&DCs following an incoming schedule. The mail from an origin has different proportions to different destinations. For each destination, there are trucks scheduled with limited capacities. The objective of the problem is to determine the sequence in which the incoming mail should be processed so that the total unused truck capacity is minimized. Since, we are not concerned with detailed scheduling/routing decisions inside the P&DC, we treat the P&DC system as a single machine. Dispatching rules and heuristics are proposed for this single machine problem and tested via computational experiments. Simulation experiments are performed to test the efficiency of these methods for the original multicenter multi-machine system.