Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons^™

Workforce Management In Periodic Delivery Operations, Karen Smilowitz, Maciek Nowak, Tingting Jiang

Information Systems and Operations Management: Faculty Publications & Other Works

Service quality and driver efficiency in the delivery industry may be enhanced by increasing the regularity with which a driver visits the same set of customers. However, effectively managing a workforce of drivers may increase travel distance, a traditional metric of the vehicle routing problem (VRP). This paper evaluates the effect that workforce management has on routing costs, providing insight for managerial decision making. The analysis is presented in the context of the period vehicle routing problem (PVRP), an extension of the VRP with vehicle routes constructed to service customers according to preset visit frequencies over an established period of …