Virtually Integrated Logistics Information System for Pickup and Delivery of EC Commodities

摘要

This paper presents a conceptual framework of the virtually integrated logistics information system(VILOGIS) which will bring about substantial changes in the shipping and delivery pattern, resulting in the faster delivery and the reduced material handing requirements, as well as the reduction of the intermediate transshipment processes. This research is aimed at finding a more efficient and economic solutions to the chronic logistics problems from which the Korean economy has been suffering for a long while. A recent statistic shows that 50% of the freight trucks run empty. A multi-stage logistic scheduling algorithm was developed as a partial implementation of the VILOGIS framework. A Korean version of the fifth generation software development tool "ProcessQ" was deployed to design the user interfaces and to facilitate the web interfaces. The algorithm was developed with the assumption that electronic shopping malls can join freely with the VILOGIS service and provide the shipping and delivery information on-line. Independent and/or company owned trucking service providers can also freely register their availability information on-line to the VILOGIS server. VILOGIS then sets the pickup and delivery schedule every hour, at the scheduled time, or at the end of the day closing time. The algorithm seeks to schedule the best combination of shipping items to the available trucks. In the worst case, delivery schedule is arranged according to the commonly adopted hub and spokes algorithm.