Optimization of cargo transportation is the process of selecting the best plan for organizing transportation using modern technologies and methods. With its help, they calculate the time spent and financial costs on a particular route and choose the one that is optimal in a given situation. Optimization of cargo transportation allows us to constantly improve the existing system, find more profitable and less costly ways to transport goods, so it needs to be given a special role in logistics.
Methods for optimizing cargo transportation
Today, the following heuristic and mathematical methods are used for optimization purposes:
- Linear programming using linear equations, finding their largest and smallest values.
- Northwest corner method: the highest values are entered into the table from the upper left corner, which will not exceed the needs of the person buying the product and the capabilities of the seller.
- Vogel method: for all columns of the table the size of the difference between the minimum tariffs is established.
- Minimum cost method: shipment is made to the cells with the lowest tariff.
- Svir's algorithm: the warehouse location is taken as the basis of the coordinate axis, and the remaining points are located along the coordinate grid. Points are then eliminated by rotating the polar axis until the sum of the eliminated points reaches the vehicle's capacity.
Methods for optimizing cargo transportation also take into account the correspondence of the sizes of containers and cargo containers, reducing the number of loading and unloading operations, automating labeling processes, reducing the costs of transporting defective and returnable goods, and reducing the time to obtain important information about the condition of cargo.
In addition, road transport is equipped with special trackers that allow you to track the route and determine the location of each vehicle.
To apply these methods, specialized software has been developed, which must be used to optimize logistics processes. But machine programming does not exclude the control of specialists who must carefully analyze the results obtained and identify cases where they do not correspond to the real state of affairs.
