Authors:
Oleg Gujo
1
and
Michael Schwind
2
Affiliations:
1
J. W. Goethe University, Germany
;
2
Technical University Kaiserslautern, Germany
Keyword(s):
Combinatorial exchange, logistic services, vehicle routing problem with time windows, profit center.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
B2B, B2C and C2C
;
B2C/B2B Considerations
;
Business and Social Applications
;
Communication and Software Technologies and Architectures
;
e-Business
;
Enterprise Information Systems
;
e-Procurement and Web-Based Supply Chain Management
;
Internet and Collaborative Computing
;
Market-Spaces: Market Portals, Hubs, Auctions
;
Society, e-Business and e-Government
;
Software Agents and Internet Computing
;
Web Information Systems and Technologies
Abstract:
The exchange of cargo capacities is an approach that is well established in the practice of logistics. Few of these mostly web-based market places, however, are able to take synergies into consideration that can be generated by the appropriate combination of the transportation lanes of different carriers. One way to achieve this is to employ combinatorial auctions, that allow one to bid on bundles of lanes. This article describes a combinatorial auction for the intra-enterprise exchange of logistic services. In the real world case considered here, we implement and analyze such an exchange process in an enterprise that is related to the food sector and organized in a profit center structure. In the intra-enterprise exchange process, each profit center is able to release delivery contracts for outsourcing if the geographic location of a customer allows a reduced-cost delivery by another profit center in the neighborhood. The cost calculation is based on the results of an integrated rou
ting system, and the in and outsourcing process is managed by using the auction mechanism ComEx. For the purpose of customer retention the delivery contracts are kept by the corresponding profit center, the incentive for exchanging the customers is achieved by a cost-savings distribution mechanism. After a description of the web-based logistics auction together with the route optimization system DynaRoute, the article describes the search for a cost optimizing strategy that bundles the appropriate delivery contracts.
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