Backward Transportation Time Calculation for Supply Chain
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for determining transportation time between a departure and destination point are not adequately adapted for supply chain and logistics, particularly in ensuring on-time delivery and managing multiple transportation modes, leading to stockpiling and capital freezing due to delayed deliveries.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus and method that determine the latest time of departure by starting from a planned time of arrival, considering legal regulations and multiple transportation means, ensuring precise delivery times while minimizing stockholding through routing, determination, and modification of transportation times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If shipment items are ordered way ahead of the time of need to minimize the industrial risk of delayed deliveries, then delivery reliability is improved, but stockholding time and capital freezing increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary calculation of the latest departure time by working backward from the required arrival time, considering all route legs and transportation means in advance. This allows precise timing of shipments without excessive early ordering, resolving the contradiction between ensuring delivery reliability and minimizing stockholding time.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses feedback from route analysis, transportation mean availability, and legal regulation constraints to continuously optimize departure time calculations. This feedback mechanism enables dynamic adjustment of shipping schedules to achieve just-in-time delivery, reducing stockholding while maintaining reliability.
2Loss of time
If precise transportation time calculation is implemented to enable just-in-time delivery, then stockholding costs are reduced, but calculation complexity increases due to multiple transportation means and legal regulations
Solution Approach 1:
The calculation system is segmented into distinct modules: route leg analysis, transportation mean selection, legal regulation application, and time calculation. Each module handles a specific aspect of the problem, making the overall complex calculation manageable and maintainable while achieving precise delivery timing.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of calculating forward from departure time, the system inverts the approach by working backward from the required arrival time to determine the latest permissible departure time. This inversion simplifies the calculation logic by establishing a fixed endpoint and working backward through constraints, reducing overall calculation complexity.
3Reliability
If backward calculation from planned arrival time is used to determine latest departure time, then on-time delivery is ensured with minimized stockholding, but deviation from conventional forward calculation methods increases system complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the inversion principle by reversing the conventional calculation direction. Instead of computing departure time forward from available transportation options, it calculates backward from the fixed arrival time constraint. This inversion naturally handles multiple transportation means and legal regulations by applying them in reverse sequence, ensuring on-time delivery while the modular implementation keeps complexity manageable.
Data Source
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AI summary
Method for determining a transportation time of a shipment item from a departure point to a destination point, one of said departure point or destination point being associated with a time constraint, and said method comprising - the determination (S1) of a sequence of route legs joining said departure point to said destination point; each route leg being associated with a transportation mean; - the determination (S2) of respective transportation time for each leg, said determination being done starting from the one among departure point or destination point being associated with a time constraint; - the modification (S3) of at least one respective transportation time determined for a route leg associated with roads, by applying a set of transportation time modifications; - the determination (S4) of said transportation time by adding said respective determined transportation time.