Solving Logistical Challenges in Raw Material Reception: An Optimization and Heuristic Approach Combining Revenue Management Principles with Scheduling Techniques

Reinaldo Gomes (), Ruxanda Godina Silva and Pedro Amorim
Additional contact information
Reinaldo Gomes: INESC TEC—Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
Ruxanda Godina Silva: Departmento de Economia, Gestao, Engenharia Industrial e Turismo (DEGEIT), University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Pedro Amorim: Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Mathematics, 2025, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: The cost of transportation of raw materials is a significant part of the procurement costs in the forestry industry. As a result, routing and scheduling techniques were introduced to the transportation of raw materials from extraction sites to transformation mills. However, little to no attention has been given to date to the material reception process at the mill. Another factor that motivated this study was the formation of large waiting queues at the mill gates and docks. Queues increase the reception time and associated costs. This work presents the development of a scheduling and reception system for deliveries at a mill. The scheduling system is based on Trucking Appointment Systems (TAS), commonly used at maritime ports, and on revenue management concepts. The developed system allocates each delivery to a timeslot and to an unloading dock using revenue management concepts. Each delivery is segmented according to its priority. Higher-segment deliveries have priority when there are multiple candidates to be allocated for one timeslot. The developed scheduling system was tested on a set of 120 daily deliveries at a Portuguese paper pulp mill and led to a reduction of 66% in the daily reception cost when compared to a first-in, first-out (FIFO) allocation approach. The average waiting time was also significantly reduced, especially in the case of high-priority trucks.

Keywords: trucking appointment systems; TAS; scheduling; revenue management; forest operations; optimization; heuristic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/6/919/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/13/6/919/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:13:y:2025:i:6:p:919-:d:1609290

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().