2010/12/21 by Niels Agatz, Ann Campbell, Moritz Fleischmann +2 · 2 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Engineering · #Advanced Manufacturing and Logistics Optimization #Digital Platforms and Economics #Optimization and Packing Problems #Organizational Management and Leadership #Transportation and Mobility Innovations #Vehicle Routing Optimization Methods
paper · pdf · doi:10.1287/trsc.1100.0346
openalex publication_date 2010/12/21 · crossref created 2010/12/21 · crossref issued 2011/08/01 · crossref published 2011/08/01 · crossref published-print 2011/08/01 · crossref deposited 2023/04/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01 · crossref indexed 2026/08/02
Many e-tailers providing attended home delivery, especially e-grocers, offer narrow delivery time slots to ensure satisfactory customer service. The choice of delivery time slots has to balance marketing and operational considerations, which results in a complex planning problem. We study the problem of selecting the set of time slots to offer in each of the zip codes in a service region. The selection needs to facilitate cost-effective delivery routes, but also needs to ensure an acceptable level of service to the customer. We present a fully automated approach that is capable of producing high-quality delivery time slot offerings in a short amount of time. Computational experiments reveal the value of this approach and the impact of the environment on the underlying trade-offs.