Seminar

25 April 2016  (Monday)

14:00-16:30

MW T6

Efficient e-commerce logistics service is the problem of ensuring reliable and punctual logistics service, while controlling the total cost at a reasonable level. Typically, A complete e-commerce logistics service network consists of four phases: (1) Line-Haul: transports bulked cargos from suppliers over the world to local distribution center by large trucks or by mixed transportation models (air/train/sea transportation with large truck transportation); (2) Transshipment: bulked packages are unloaded and broken down in distribution center receiving area, cargos are sorted in the staging area, those shared with the same destination are consolidated in the consolidation area, and then recombined cargos are loaded to the specified outbound trucks in shipping area for next phase’s transportation; (3) Local Distribution: transports reconsolidated cargos from distribution center to district delivery stations on urban road; (4) Last Mile Distribution: deliveries cargos from delivery station to customers.

In my research, there are four scenarios to improve the e-commerce logistics service by adopting synchronization mechanisms:

(1) Supply synchronization to deal with the Line-Haul phase

(2) Distribution center operation synchronization to realize efficient transshipment

(3) Order synchronization to improve last mile distribution service

(4) Vertical synchronization linkage mechanism to study the mechanism of synchronization in the e-commerce logistics service network.

With the rapid expansion of production scale in many manufacturers, many management issues are becoming more and more acute, such as infeasible scheduling, inappropriate production arrangement, and large inventory pressure. Lack of synchronization is one of the most important reasons for these management issues in shop-floor. In this work, we first propose a framework with three aspects for classifying synchronization, i.e. Hierarchical Sync, Vertical Sync and Horizontal Sync. Hierarchical Sync aims to synchronize planning, scheduling and execution to make prompt and effective response to disturbances. The purpose of Vertical Sync is to synchronize the production of upstream and downstream workshops/stages to reduce setup cost and lower WIP level. Horizontal Sync aims at synchronizing the production progresses of batches within a customer order to reduce the holding and management cost. Secondly, we discuss various measures and mechanisms for synchronization. Thirdly, Real-time Advanced Planning and Scheduling Shell 2.0 (RAPShelll 2.0) is developed by using the Internet of Things (IoT) technology to facilitate synchronization as well as fulfill daily operations of different users. Finally, we will present how to incorporate synchronization mechanisms in RAPShell 2.0 to achieve the aforementioned synchronization.

Equipment maintenance (EM) costs are a major part of the total operating costs of all manufacturing and proprietor, in recent years, globalization and fast growth of communication technologies, computer and information technologies (IoT) have changed the pattern.

In this research, a new cloud-based maintenance platform is proposed that is dependent upon coordination, co-operation and negotiation through the use of Internet of things (i.e. wireless, web, RFID etc.) communication technologies. This cloud-based maintenance enables manufacturing operations to achieve equipment failure automatically submit, quick and convenient platform through integrating the existent advanced technologies with distributed sources. The main difference between the proposed cloud-based maintenance and existing systems is the system flexibility. This cloud-based maintenance consists of three subsystems: Pre-maintenance center, maintenance trading center and after maintenance trading center. The relationship of three subsystems can be considered as supplier, auctioneer and clients. This division can effectively reduce maintenance cost, maintenance response time, and solve the problem of lack of restricted information. Therefore, the competition of company can be increased due to high reliability of cloud-based maintenance. Some existing modules of this cloud-based maintenance demonstrate its feasibility.

Capturing and processing of real-time E-commerce logistics frontline filed data is essential in improving the performance of logistics planning, scheduling and coordinating for logistics resources. Wearable devices that are famous in consumer market bring a new interaction method without the influence on working operations for real-time data collection. This research presents a cloud-based, flexible, modularized and lightweight framework for mobile middleware system, named Mobile Gateway Operation System (MGOS) to connect, configure, integrate and coordinate heterogeneous industrial wearables with real-life logistics scenarios to finally realize the visibility and traceability for logistics resources.