In the agricultural industry, the importance of transportation costs increases considerably as fuel and labor costs climb. Logistic cooperation is an important strategic alternative to reduce transportation costs and ...In the agricultural industry, the importance of transportation costs increases considerably as fuel and labor costs climb. Logistic cooperation is an important strategic alternative to reduce transportation costs and increase efficiencies. Georgia＇s ornamental industry is characterized by producers that share clients, routes and origins; however, each producer has an independent transportation system. This paper analyses a case study to determine if a transportation alliance, through a horizontal cooperation and routing junction among ornamental producers in Georgia, would reduce shipping costs, increase distribution efficiencies and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Routing and cost analysis were conducted followed by a sensitivity analysis for each constraint. Results showed that with the use of the GIS ArcLogistics 9.3 software, transportation alliances in the ornamental industry are profitable in terms of transport efficiencies and internal and external costs. Total cost savings per shipping cycle ranged from 1.0% to 13.2%, miles driven savings ranged from 1.1% to 13.6%, total number of trucks required savings ranged from 2.5% to 10% and driving hours savings ranged from 1.0% to 18.4%. CO2 emission reductions were also achieved ranging from 1.2% to 8.4% per shipping cycle.展开更多
Advanced integration of logistics systems has been promoted for competitiveness and sustainability.Interconnection of transport operations increases complexity at a network level,which reduces the predictability of th...Advanced integration of logistics systems has been promoted for competitiveness and sustainability.Interconnection of transport operations increases complexity at a network level,which reduces the predictability of the response of the system to disruptions.However,our understanding of the behavior of such systems is still limited.In particular,the topology of the network,which changes as the systems are integrated,is an important factor that affects the performance of the entire system.Knowledge of such mechanisms would be useful in the design and evaluation of integrated logistics.Here,we developed a simple simulation framework for logistics networks that extracts the essence of the problem.We performed extensive numerical experiments for three scenarios that mimic changes in demand:(i)locally and temporally increased traffic demand,(ii)globally and temporally increased traffic demand,and(iii)permanent change in demand pattern,under various conditions on the type of route-finding algorithm,network structure,and transportation capacity.Adaptive route-finding algorithms were more effective in square lattice and random networks,which contained many bypass routes,than in hub-andspoke networks.Furthermore,the square lattice and random networks were robust to the change in the demand.We suggest that such preferable properties are only present in networks with redundancy and that the bypass structure is an important criterion for designing network logistics.We also performed a realistic case study that mimics interregional truck transport in Japan and confirmed that our conclusions are applicable to a practical problem.展开更多
文摘In the agricultural industry, the importance of transportation costs increases considerably as fuel and labor costs climb. Logistic cooperation is an important strategic alternative to reduce transportation costs and increase efficiencies. Georgia＇s ornamental industry is characterized by producers that share clients, routes and origins; however, each producer has an independent transportation system. This paper analyses a case study to determine if a transportation alliance, through a horizontal cooperation and routing junction among ornamental producers in Georgia, would reduce shipping costs, increase distribution efficiencies and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Routing and cost analysis were conducted followed by a sensitivity analysis for each constraint. Results showed that with the use of the GIS ArcLogistics 9.3 software, transportation alliances in the ornamental industry are profitable in terms of transport efficiencies and internal and external costs. Total cost savings per shipping cycle ranged from 1.0% to 13.2%, miles driven savings ranged from 1.1% to 13.6%, total number of trucks required savings ranged from 2.5% to 10% and driving hours savings ranged from 1.0% to 18.4%. CO2 emission reductions were also achieved ranging from 1.2% to 8.4% per shipping cycle.
文摘Advanced integration of logistics systems has been promoted for competitiveness and sustainability.Interconnection of transport operations increases complexity at a network level,which reduces the predictability of the response of the system to disruptions.However,our understanding of the behavior of such systems is still limited.In particular,the topology of the network,which changes as the systems are integrated,is an important factor that affects the performance of the entire system.Knowledge of such mechanisms would be useful in the design and evaluation of integrated logistics.Here,we developed a simple simulation framework for logistics networks that extracts the essence of the problem.We performed extensive numerical experiments for three scenarios that mimic changes in demand:(i)locally and temporally increased traffic demand,(ii)globally and temporally increased traffic demand,and(iii)permanent change in demand pattern,under various conditions on the type of route-finding algorithm,network structure,and transportation capacity.Adaptive route-finding algorithms were more effective in square lattice and random networks,which contained many bypass routes,than in hub-andspoke networks.Furthermore,the square lattice and random networks were robust to the change in the demand.We suggest that such preferable properties are only present in networks with redundancy and that the bypass structure is an important criterion for designing network logistics.We also performed a realistic case study that mimics interregional truck transport in Japan and confirmed that our conclusions are applicable to a practical problem.
