Case Study
Sheet1
Below is an example of Delivery Station’s dispatch model. Dispatch means the delivery vehicles are leaving the station with certain number of packages on it and go out in a pre-defined route sequence to deliver packages to customer’s door step.
There are two major delivering windows everyday and they are supported by different shifts of associates. Every window has a number of waves for dispatch. Per wave, the number of delivery vans is constant. Every wave is placed at least 30 mins apart for the ease of operation. For example, wave 1 leaves at 8:00; wave 2 leaves at 8:30; wave 3 leaves at 9:00…
Assume vans will have to return to the station by 9PM everyday and the maximum route length a van can support is 10 hrs. Noted that # of packages that can be delivered per route will decrease when the maximum route length is not achievable.
Dispatch Time Span First Wave Time Depart Time # of Dispatch Wave Max # of packages per Route # of Vans per Wave
Early AM Shift 8:00 4 180 50
Late AM Shift 10:00 8 200 50
Please create a dispatch model to evaluate this system and answer the following questions
a. What is the maximum daily dispatch capacity in packages given the model assumptions above?
b. Do you see any operation concerns for the sample dispatch model in a.? How would you improve it?
c. Assume you only identified 300 van parking spots onsite and all vans have to park onsite overnight after their delivery. Assume vans will not be reused between 2 shifts and max # of vans per wave is 50. How would you redesign the dispatch model for this station to achieve the maximum dispatch daily capacity?
