Performance estimation and operating policies in a truck-based autonomous mobile robot delivery system

Abstract

Last-mile delivery is a costly and time-consuming process in e-commerce operations. Piloted by several companies, autonomous mobile robots cooperating with trucks have been implemented for parcel delivery. In this system, a truck departs from the warehouse, carrying robots and parcels, and traverses several drop-off points to release robots for parcel delivery or to deliver parcels by itself. We focus on performance estimation and system configuration, considering the no-zoning policy, where all trucks serve the whole delivery area and the zoning policy, where each truck takes charge of one zone. A queuing network is constructed to estimate the parcel throughput time and a cost minimisation model is developed for the system with a required throughput time. The optimal number of drop-off points and batch size can be numerically found to minimise the order throughput time. The zoning policy is cheaper than no-zoning policy for a small number of drop-off points and a short required throughput time, and it is cheaper in a system with a large number of drop-off points. Moreover, we find that while the truck-based autonomous mobile robot delivery system typically has a larger order throughput time than a delivery system using only robots, it is much less costly.

KEYWORDS:

• Last-mile delivery
• autonomous mobile robot
• queuing network
• simulation
• performance analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data supporting this study's findings are available on request from the authors. The data in the Sao Paulo case that support the findings of this study are openly available in Kaggle at http://doi.org/10.34740/kaggle/dsv/195341

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Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (under grant numbers 72201197, 72171233, and 71901102), Hubei Provincial Natural Science Foundation (under grant number 2022CFB390) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law (under grant number 2722024BY014).

Notes on contributors

Yaohan Shen

Yaohan Shen is a lecturer of Management School at Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China. She holds a Ph.D. from School of Management at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China. Her main research interests include big data logistics and operational research for intelligent logistics system. She published three Web of Science Core Collection articles in journals including Omega: The International Journal of Management Science, International Journal of Production Research, and Neural Computing and Applications.

Bipan Zou

Bipan Zou is a professor of the School of Business Administration of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. He received his Ph.D. degree from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. His main research interests include design and operating policies analysis of intelligent warehousing systems, such as the robotic mobile fulfilment system, the robotic compact storage and retrieval system, the drone delivery system, the automated mobile robot delivery system. He has published articles in leading international journals, include Transportation Science, European Journal of Operational Research, International Journal of Production Research, etc.

René De Koster

René (M.) B.M. de Koster is a professor of logistics and operations management at the Department of Technology and Operations Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM). His research interests are warehousing, material handling, container terminal operations, behavioural operations, and sustainable logistics. He is the author and editor of 8 books and over 230 papers published in books and journals such as OR, POM, JOM, TS, IISE T, EJOR, and Interfaces. He is in the editorial boards of eight academic journals, a fellow of two research schools, member of the European Logistics Association (ELA) R&D board, member of the BVL Scientific Advisory Board, chairman of two Dutch logistics awards, chairman of Stichting Logistica, and founder of the Material Handling Forum.

T.C.E. Cheng

T.C. Edwin Cheng is Dean of PolyU Business School, Fung Yiu King–Wing Hang Bank Professor in Business Administration and Chair Professor of Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He obtained a B.Sc.[Eng] (first class honors) from the University of Hong Kong; an M.Sc. from the University of Birmingham, U.K.; and a Ph.D. and an Sc.D. from the University of Cambridge, U.K. Prof. Cheng's research interests are in operations management and operations research. He has published over 900 SCI/SSCI papers and co-authored 15 books. According to Google Scholar, he has received over 50,000 citations and his h-index is 105.