A heuristic algorithm for the three-dimensional container packing problem with zero unloading cost constraint

Chun Cheng Lin*, Chang Sung Yu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Home delivery is one of the most important cost drivers in the e-commerce industry, and a recent study concluded that over 40% cost reduction for the dotcom companies can be achieved by offering home delivery system. This paper considers the home delivery system to cope with the threedimensional container packing problem (3DCPP), which is a crucial issue among logistics operations to pack a number of rectangular items (cargos) orthogonally onto a rectangular container so that the utilization rate of the container space is maximized. In our framework of home delivery, we assume that the routing of a consignment is given, and hence there is an order of unloading items with respect to a problem. If loading items doesn't take the unloading order into account, then it may lead to huge unloading costs (i.e., unloading and reloading other items many times). In this paper, the unloading cost with respect to a packing pattern is precisely defined according to the invisible and untouchable rule and an iterative heuristic algorithm based on the sub-volume scheme is proposed. Our approach is compared with the previous approaches by using standard benchmark data set, and our experimental results suggest our approach to be promising, as it can generate the packing patterns without unloading cost, which has a high utilization ratio, and the benchmark problems can be executed efficiently.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication2006 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages4637-4642
Number of pages6
ISBN (Print)1424401003, 9781424401000
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2006
Event2006 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - Taipei, Taiwan
Duration: 8 Oct 200611 Oct 2006

Publication series

NameConference Proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
Volume6
ISSN (Print)1062-922X

Conference

Conference2006 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
Country/TerritoryTaiwan
CityTaipei
Period8/10/0611/10/06

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