Optimizing Shipment Consolidation for a Logistic Hub at E. van Wijk Forwarding

This research is conducted at E. van Wijk Forwarding in Almelo, the Netherlands. EvW Forwarding is a forwarding company in the business-to-business market. The company acts as the intermediary between customers and transportation companies. EvW Forwarding has identified a change in the customers’ needs, as they require a complete end-to-end service. However, the company’s limited control over its business operations does not allow them to meet these customers’ demands. The company wants to implement a centralised logistic hub to gain greater control over its logistics. Therefore, the main research question is how to optimally operate a logistic hub to improve a set of KPIs at EvW. This question is answered through the CRISP-DM methodology. The main focus of the research is inventory consolidation. The goal is to combine multiple shipments in order to minimize the total number of containers needed. To implement this strategy, we develop a bin packing problem with a time-quantity shipment-release policy. The objective function of our model is to minimise the total number of containers needed. The specifics of EvW Forwarding’s case demand the introduction of an additional time-quantity shipment-release constraint to comply with a zero-delay requirement.