A decomposition-based approach for the selection of standardized modular containers

Abstract

The standardisation of packaging and containers for product handling has potential benefits from transportation, material handling and environmental perspectives. Likewise, standardised modular containers play an important role in the Physical Internet (PI). To support implementation of standard modular containers, we introduce a mathematical model to select a requisite number of modular containers to pack a set of products to maximise space utilisation. A decomposition-based solution methodology is developed and presented. Computational results from industry-based problem instances indicate that using standardised modular containers results in increased space utilisation at the unit load level. This finding substantiates the use of modular containers in moving toward the PI.

Keywords:

• logistics
• distribution
• Physical Internet
• mixed-integer programming

Acknowledgements

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, CELDi or the CELDi PI Thought Leaders. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the detailed and constructive comments of two anonymous reviewers that greatly helped to improve the presentation of this work.

Notes

1 For all products and containers, the longest dimension is its length and the shortest dimension is its height.

2 Given that the later US-based retailer proof-of-concept study is based on Imperial units, we use Imperial units throughout the paper.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) [grant number IIP-1032062], [grant number IIP-1031956] through the NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center for Excellence in Logistics and Distribution (CELDi) and the associated CELDi Physical Internet Thought Leaders.