Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A combinatorial intra-enterprise exchange for logistics services

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Information Systems and e-Business Management Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The exchange of cargo capacities is a well established approach in logistics. However, only few logistics marketplaces are able to take into consideration synergies that can be generated by combining different transportation routes of different logistics carrierps. In order to exploit these synergies, we designed and implemented the combinatorial exchange mechanism ComEx for the intra-enterprise exchange of delivery orders in a logistics company organized in a profit center structure. Each profit center is able to release delivery orders to an adjacent profit center if the geographic locations of the customers allow for a reduced-cost delivery by the adjacent profit center. We demonstrate that by using the ComEx mechanism, the total cost of transportation of our logistics company can be reduced by up to 14%. Since our iterative auction mechanism is very complex and therefore resource-intensive, we reduce the complexity by applying a convex hull approach combined with a distance-based cost estimator.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://www.combinenet.com, http://www.i2.com, http://www.nex.com.

  2. In this article, the terms ‘insourcing’ and ‘outsourcing’ are used to describe the exchange of delivery orders between the carriers of a logistics enterprise that is organized in a profit center structure. This use of the terms ‘insourcing’ and ‘outsourcing’ does not exactly correspond with the common definition in IS literature. In order to illustratively describe the exchange mechanism these terms are used in an ‘innovative’ way.

  3. A cost calculation for a single cluster of delivery orders triggers two complete route calculations including and excluding the cluster in the current delivery tour.

References

  • An N, Elmaghraby W, Keskinocak P (2005) Bidding strategies and their impact on revenues in combinatorial auctions. J Revenue Pricing Manag 3(4):337–357

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bullnheimer B, Hartl R, Strauss C (1999) An improved ant system algorithm for the vehicle routing problem. Ann Oper Res 89:319–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cantillon E, Pesendorfer M (2005) Auctioning bus routes: the London experience. In: Steinberg R, Shoham Y, Cramton P (eds) Combinatorial auctions, chap 22. MIT Press, Massachusetts, pp 573–571

  • Caplice C (1996) An optimization based bidding process: a new framework for shipper-carrierrelationships. PhD thesis, MIT Press, Massachusetts

  • Caplice C, Sheffi Y (2003) Optimization-based procurement for transportation services. J Bus Logist 24(2):109–128

    Google Scholar 

  • Cramton P, Shoham Y, Steinberg R (2006) Combinatorial auctions: Introduction. In: Steinberg R, Shoham Y, Cramton P (eds) Combinatorial auctions. MIT Press, Massachusetts, pp 1–13

  • Cruijssen F, Brysy O, Dullaert W, Fleuren H, Salomon M (2007a) Joint route planning under varying market conditions. Int J Phys Distrib Logist Manag 37(4):287–304

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cruijssen F, Cools K, Dullaert W, Fleuren H (2007b) Horizontal cooperation in logistics: opportunities and impediments. Transp Res Part E Logist Transp Rev 43(2):129–142

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elmaghraby W, Keskinocak P (2005) Combinatorial auctions in procurement. In: Harrison TP, Lee HL, Neale JJ (eds) The practice of supply chain management: where theory and application converge. Springer, Berlin, pp 245–258

  • Ergun O, Kuyzu G, Savelsbergh MWP (2007a) Bid price optimization for simultaneous truckload transportation procurement auctions. Technical report on Stewart School of Industrial Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

  • Ergun O, Kuyzu G, Savelsbergh MWP (2007b) Reducing truckload transportation costs through collaboration. Transp Sci 41(2):206–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ergun O, Kuyzu G, Savelsbergh MWP (2007c) Shipper collaboration. Comput Oper Res 34(6):1551–1560

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glover F (1986) Future paths for integer programming and links to artificial intelligence. Comput Oper Res 13(5):533–549

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goel A, Gruhn V (2007) A general vehicle routing problem. Eur J Oper Res 191:650–660

    Google Scholar 

  • Gomber P, Schmidt C, Weinhardt C (1999) Auctions in electronic commerce: efficiency versus computational tractability. In: Proceedings of the international conference on electronic commerce 98, Seoul, pp 43–48

  • Gujo O, Schwind M (2007) Comex: combinatorial auctions for the intra-enterprise exchange of logistics services. In: Proceedings of the 9th international conference on enterprise information systems. Funchal, Madeira, Portugal

  • Gujo O, Schwind M, Vykoukal J (2007) The design of incentives in a combinatorial exchange for intra-enterprise logistic services. In: Proceedings of the 9th international IEEE conference on E-Commerce technology (CEC’07), IEEE Comp Society, Tokyo, pp 443–446

  • Houghtalen LM (2007) Designing allocation mechanisms for carrier alliances. Phd thesis, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

  • Krajewska MA, Kopfer H (2006) Collaborating freight forwarding enterprises. OR Spectr 28(3):301–436

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krajewska MA, Kopfer H, Laporte G, Ropke S, Zaccour G (2008) Horizontal cooperation of freight carriers: Request allocation and profit sharing. J Oper Res Soc (in press)

  • Kruskal JB (1956) On the shortest spanning subtree of a graph and the traveling salesman problem. Proc Am Math Soc 7:48–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li H, Lim A (2003) Local search with annealing-like restarts to solve the VRPTW. Eur J Oper Res 150:115–127

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nowak M, Ergun O, White CC (2008) Pickup and delivery with split loads. Transp Sci 42(1):32–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Özener O, Ergun O (2008) Allocating costs in a collaborative transportation procurement network. Transp Sci (in press)

  • Parkes DC, Kalagnanam J, Eso M (2001) Achieving budget-balance with vickrey-based payment schemes in combinatorial exchanges. In: Proceedigns of the 17th international joint conference on artificial intelligence

  • Quariguasi JFN, Bloemhof-Ruwaard JM, van Nunen J, van Heck H (2006) Designing and evaluating sustainable logistics networks. Int J Prod Econ 111(2):195–208

    Google Scholar 

  • Regan A, Song J (2003) An auction based collaborative carrier network. Technical report: UCI-ITS-WP-03-6, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Irvine

  • Savelsbergh MWP, Sol M (1995) The general pickup and delivery problem. Transp Sci 29:17–29

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwind M (2005) Design of combinatorial auctions for allocation and procurement processes. In: Proceedings of the 7th international IEEE conference on E-Commerce technology (CEC’05), IEEE Comp Society, München, pp 391–395

  • Schwind M, Stockheim T, Rothlauf F (2003) Optimization heuristics for the combinatorial auction problem. In: Proceedings of the congress on evolutionary computation (CEC 2003), pp 1588–1595

  • Schwind M, Gujo O, Stockheim T (2006) Dynamic resource prices in a combinatorial grid system. In: Proceedigns of the 8th international IEEE Conference on E-Commerce technology (CEC’06), San Francisco, CA, IEEE Comp Society, pp 49–53

  • Slikker M, Fransoo J, Wouters M (2005) Cooperation between multiple news-vendors with transshipments. Eur J Oper Res 167:370–380

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Song J, Regan A (2001) Transition or transformation? Emerging freight transportation intermediaries. Transp Res Rec 1763(1):1–5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stockheim T, Schwind M (2004) Agent-based scheduling in supply chain management. In: Proc of the Sec European Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems (EUMAS 2004), Barcelona, Spain

  • Vries SD, Vohra R (2001) Combinatorial auctions: a survey. INFORMS J Comput 15(3):284–309

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wendt O (1995) Tourenplanung durch den Einsatz naturanaloger Verfahren: Integration von genetischen Algorithmen und Simulated Annealing. Gabler Verlag, Wiesbaden, Germany

    Google Scholar 

  • Wendt O, Stockheim T, Weiss K (2005) Intelligente Tourenplanung mit DynaRoute. Wirtsch 47(2):135–140

    Google Scholar 

  • Wendt O, König W, Stockheim T, Lanninger V, Weiss K (2006) Transportplanung der Zukunft - Prozess- und Kostenanalyse, Optimierungspotenziale und Outsourcing. Books on Demand, Norderstedt, Germany

  • Xiao F, Yang H (2006) Three-player game-theoretic model over a freight transportation network. Transp Res Part C Emerg Technol 15(4):209–21

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Business Information Systems and Operations Research, Technical University Kaiserslautern, Erwin-Schroedinger-Str. 42, 67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Michael Schwind

  2. Chair of Business Administration, esp. Information Systems, Frankfurt University, Grüneburgplatz 1, 60323, Frankfurt, Germany

    Oleg Gujo & Jens Vykoukal

Authors
  1. Michael Schwind
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Oleg Gujo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jens Vykoukal
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Michael Schwind.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Schwind, M., Gujo, O. & Vykoukal, J. A combinatorial intra-enterprise exchange for logistics services. Inf Syst E-Bus Manage 7, 447–471 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-008-0102-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-008-0102-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation