Browsing by Author "Ranathunga, M. I. D."

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    Simulation-Based Efficiency Assessment of Integrated First-Mile Pickup and Last-Mile Delivery in an E-Commerce Logistics Network
    (Department of Industrial Management, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya Sri Lanka, 2022) Ranathunga, M. I. D.; Wijayanayake, A. N.; Niwunhella, D. H. H.
    Logistics operations are crucial in the e-commerce supply chain as they deal with high costs as well as they have a significant environmental impact. The first-mile and last-mile delivery operations in e-commerce logistics are regarded as the operations with the highest costs. As a result, e-commerce service providers are keen to improve their first mile and last-mile delivery processes. Therefore, this study has been conducted to optimize transportation cost and distance of combined first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery operations while meeting some practical requirements such as a variety of package types, package compatibility on different types of vehicles, and a heterogeneous fleet of vehicles. After a careful literature review, this paper introduces a mathematical model to optimize the simultaneous first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery. The proposed mathematical model was simulated in SupplyChainGuru® modelling and simulation software. The study concluded that when first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery are routed simultaneously, rather than distributing and collecting the products as two separate operations, the overall cost is minimized by about 34%, and the distance is reduced by about 42% while reducing the number of vehicles on the route and utilising the maximum possible capacity of vehicles. This simultaneous pickup and delivery will improve the routing of the e-commerce logistic supply chain and will serve as a platform for extending the simultaneous pickup and delivery process to other industries as well.
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    Solution approaches for combining first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery in an e-commerce logistic network: A systematic literature review
    (Department of Industrial Management, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya Sri Lanka, 2021) Ranathunga, M. I. D.; Wijayanayake, A. N.; Niwunhella, D. H. H.
    Logistics is one of the primary areas of operation within cutting-edge supply chain operations. In the e-commerce supply chain also logistics operations play a vital part. The logistics operations must be controlled effectively and efficiently since they deal with the high-cost besides environmental impacts. In e-commerce logistics operations, first-mile and last-mile delivery operations are considered as the operations with the highest costs incurred. So, e-commerce service providers are interested in optimizing their first-mile and last-mile delivery operations. Though it is known that the integration of first-mile pickup and last-mile deliveries will minimize the cost of transportation, there are more practical concerns to be taken into account when combining the first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery operations. Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is discussed in the literature as a solution approach for this kind of problems. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current CVRP related literature, including models, algorithmic solution approaches, objectives, and industrial applications, with a focus of identifying interesting study paths for the future to improve distribution in e-commerce logistics networks by combining first-mile pickup and last-mile delivery operations. The findings of the study have demonstrated that constraints and features of Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls are very attractive with today's e-commerce operations, and the majority of the cited publications employed approximation methods rather than precise algorithms to solve these types of models.