Ruttplanering - Fallstudie Myrorna

Abstract

This thesis aims to use route planning and optimization to improve a company’s logistic solution and functions. The company is called Myrorna Sverige and is a charity organisation with their own fleet of vehicles. Myrorna is owned by the Swedish Salvation Army. All of Myrornas profits is reinvested in the Salvation Army, to support their social work. Their business idea is to collect second-­‐hand clothes, which are gifts from peoples and companies and resell them through their stores to a much lower price. These gifts are collected, either through pick up on site or from specially build boxes were people can drop of used clothes. In total there are 171 boxes that has to be visited once a week and eight stores located in the west/southwest part of Sweden. The collected clothes will be sorted in their production central and there it will be determined if they are sellable in the Swedish market, if they will be thrown away or if they’ll be exported to third-­‐world countries. In this study we’ll investigate different methods for route planning, route optimization and simulation. The results from our investigation narrowed it down to two different methods, the Clarke&Wright algorithm and a simulation tool called LogiX, The results from these methods were compared to each other and with the logistic solution that is applied today. We found that the digital simulation tool, LogiX, were superior to both the Clarke&Wright-­‐ algorithm and the present solution. By using the simulation tool it was possible to reduce the number of driven kilometres by 46% and by 7% compared to the Clarke &Wright solution. Both methods helped to reduce the environmental impacts and the cost situation drastically. Even though the simulation tool gave the best result, the Clarke&Wright did also drastically improve the present logistic solution. In comparison, the Simulation were only 7 % better when it came to kilometres driven. Today Myrornas vehicle fleet contains 5 lorries. They are about to reinvest in new vehicles. Therefore we also investigated how many vehicles they actually need. The Clarke&Wright algorithm suggested that they would only need 4 lorries and the simulation said 3. In total, with usage of our methodology, we were able to reduce the cost per year by 1 500 000 SEK, the emitting of greenhouse gases by 46% per year and the possibility to get rid of two vehicles.