![Sample our Economics, Finance,Business & Industry journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5931/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Economics-Finance-Business-Industry.jpg"})
Abstract
The growth of e-commerce has increased the number of home deliveries that need to be made in retail operations. Strategies such as reducing routing distance using optimisation models have been the most popular approaches to enhancing the efficiency of the delivery process and reducing its environmental burden. However, recently, customer purchasing behaviour has become relevant in understanding demand trends and increasing the effectiveness of the supply chain process. Customers are subject to different incentives to drive them to wait longer for their home deliveries. These incentives allow companies to pool and ship in more cost-efficient and energy-friendly alternatives. In this article, we present a methodology that uses a mixed-integer-linear programming model to evaluate the impact of extending delivery slots. We use real data from one of the largest retail companies in Mexico to analyse the impact of different time slot extensions for three different criteria: distance, transport costs and CO2 emissions. Our results show that the common approach of minimising distance is not recommended for any of the scenarios under study. On average, having up to 4 days for deliveries leads to savings of 57% in total distance, 61% in total costs and 56% in fuel consumption and/or CO2 emissions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andrés Muñoz-Villamizar
Andrés Muñoz-Villamizar has over eight years of teaching experience in Operations Management as an Associate Professor in the School of Economics and Management Sciences at Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia. Currently, he collaborates with the MIT Food and Retail Operations Lab (FaROL) and the MIT Sustainable Logistics Initiative (SLI). His research interests are related to improve both productivity and environmental performance of supply chain operations involving multiple stakeholders. His main focus is to help manufacturers and retailers to optimise their logistics operations through data analytics, visualisation and high-resolution modelling. Dr. Muñoz-Villamizar is a former Postdoctoral Associate at MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL). He received his Ph.D. in Applied Engineering from Tecnun – Universidad de Navarra (Spain). He also holds a master’s degree in Operations Management from Universidad de La Sabana and an Industrial Engineering degree from Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito, Colombia.
Josué C. Velázquez-Martínez
Josué C. Velázquez-Martínez is a research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, and has over 10 years of experience in conducting applied research on logistics sustainability in emerging markets. Dr. Velázquez Martínez serves as the Executive Director of the Supply Chain Management Master’s Program at MIT, and is the founder and director of the MIT Sustainable Logistics Initiative. Dr. Velázquez Martínez has published a variety of academic articles and book chapters in the field of logistics sustainability, and has been invited as guest speaker in conferences and academic seminars in Europe, Asia, USA and Latin America. Dr. Velázquez Martínez holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering, a MSc in Manufacturing Systems and a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering with focus on Sustainability in Supply Chains from Monterrey Tech, Mexico.
Christopher Mejía-Argueta
Christopher Mejía-Argueta is the Founder & Director of the Food and Retail Operations Lab, one of the six labs at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. He has over 13 years of experience doing research projects for over 15 countries from four different continents. He develops applied research on retail operations, particularly on nanostores, urban distribution and supply chain management for food and agribusiness. He is author and editor of many publications (i.e., four books and several scientific articles) focused on addressing socio-economic and logistics challenges in emerging markets and Latin America. He has done dozens of industry and government projects related to freight transportation, logistics, retailing and supply chain management. Chris also participates of scientific and practitioner forums. He holds a Ph.D. and a M.Sc. from Monterrey Tech, Mexico where he got summa cum laude honors in both cohorts. Prior to joining MIT, Chris was a postdoctoral fellow at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, the academic leader at the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation in Colombia and an external consultant for Hewlett-Packard Labs at Palo Alto, California in the U.S.
Karla Gámez-Pérez
Karla M. Gámez-Pérez is logistics transformation manager at Sigma Alimentos and She is currently Assistant Professor at the Science and Engineering School at Tec de Monterrey. She was a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. She has over ten years of teaching experience in operations management as an assistant professor in the Science and Engineering School at Monterrey Tech, México. She has also collaborated with public institutions and industry to improve their processes. Her current research focuses on sustainable transportation and green logistics with the purpose of improving fuel consumption and reducing CO2 emissions. Dr. Gámez-Pérez holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Science with focus on Sustainable transportation from Monterrey Tech. She received her Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering with focus on System Theory and Methodology from the School of Engineering and Sciences at Monterrey Tech. She holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the same Institution, where she was approved with Honours. She also received the CILOG-Best Paper Award 2016 issued by the Mexican Logistics and Supply Chain Association.