A Heuristic Procedure to Aggregate Containers Onto Pallets and Plan the Loading of Pallets into Trucks.

Abstract

A heuristic procedure is presented which aggregates containers of multiple products onto pallets and then plans the loading of these pallets into trucks. The efficient loading of products onto pallets and pallets into trucks is an economic fundamental. In 1993 the value of products shipped by truck in the United States exceeded 4.6 trillion dollars or about 75.6 percent of gross domestic product. Industry sources estimate that 98% of all manufactured products are transported on pallets. The heuristic provides feasible solutions to the pallet and truck loading problem in real time. The method considers 'real-world' criteria new to the literature, such as stacking compatibility among product containers and axle weight limits for trailers. The procedure is demonstrated with actual examples from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and a commercial company.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 01, 1996
Accession Number
ADA308064

Entities

People

  • David J. Adams

Organizations

  • Naval Postgraduate School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Commerce
  • Computer Programming
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Databases
  • Engineering
  • Heuristic Methods
  • Load Monitoring
  • Mathematical Models
  • New York
  • Operations Research
  • Systems Engineering
  • Three Dimensional
  • Transportation
  • Two Dimensional
  • United States

Readers

  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
  • Operations Research