Operational and Tactical Analysis of Same-Day Delivery Distribution Systems

Abstract

E-retail is a highly competitive segment that constantly demands innovation and process improvement. One such innovation rapidly gaining traction is same-day delivery (SDD); large e-retailers like Amazon are quite active in SDD, and over half of all US retailers claim to offer some form of the service. This talk surveys some of our recent and ongoing work studying the distribution component of SDD systems, and includes both (1) operational questions faced by dispatchers, e.g. when should vehicles be dispatched and what orders should they deliver, as well as (2) tactical questions faced by managers, e.g. how late in the day should SDD be offered and how big should the delivery fleet be. The talk is based on join work with Alan Erera, Mathias Klapp (now at PUC Chile) and Alex Stroh.