INESC TEC optimises transportation of food products

INESC TEC’s Centre for Industrial Engineering and Management (CEGI) is currently working on a project called FRESHPACK where the goal is to optimise the Ship-Pack (transportation unit between warehouses and stores), which transports fresh products for Sonae MC, the food retailer of the Sonae Group.

The idea is to assess the currently used Ship-Packs by performing a broad analysis of the impact of defining these quantities in the entire supply chain – from receiving the merchandise at the warehouses to the replenishment of shelves in the store.

With the new methodology, it will be possible to identify potential gains in various indicators, such as lack of product, rotation and number of processed orders. The CEGI researchers will also develop an optimisation model to help define the Ship-Packs and analyse the implications of having different stores.

The impact of the new methodology will be assessed using a pilot with a subset of products. The CEGI team involved in the project is composed of CEGI researchers Bernardo Almada-Lobo, Pedro Amorim, Luís Guimarães, Hugo Simões and Manuel Pina Marques.

The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institutions: INESC Porto and FEUP.

Photo credits: Wikimedia

INESC TEC, October 2014

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INESC TEC optimises transportation of food products