DHL Tests Route Planning Software

Logistics Insight Asia - Top Story, 2/4/2009

Quintiq, a supplier of advanced planning & scheduling (APS) solutions, is playing a role in the dynamic route planning module of Deutsche Post DHL’s SmartTruck pilot project.

The former’s “Pick-up & Delivery” (PUD) planning solution optimizes routes and ensures that available vehicle capacity is utilized to the maximum. It is possible to relay ad hoc pick-ups to vehicles in real time while they are in transit. In doing so, the system takes journey times, customer service, workloads, cargo capacities and processing time into account. Unutilized capacities can be identified at a glance and can be used immediately. The pilot project in Berlin will initially involve eight delivery vehicles, two of which will be fully electronically integrated with the system.

Deliveries will be tagged with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. This will allow continuous logging and monitoring of the vehicles’ load status.

Dr Keith Ulrich, head of technology and innovation management at DHL says, “Dynamic route planning not only calculates the best route in advance, it is also the first system to take into account real-time traffic information in inner city areas, for example traffic jams or construction sites, and adapt routes accordingly.”

Other project partners include the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the German Aerospace Agency (DLR), the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Motorola.

Quintiq, www.quintiq.com