Designing sustainable last-mile delivery services in online retailing

This project focused on improving the fulfilment operations of online grocers. In particular, the project focused on two sub questions: (1) how to improve the operational decisions related to the management of the menu of delivery time windows offered to the customers and (2) how to improve the transportation operations to supply the pickup points at the physical stores. For both questions, we developed new operational strategies and decision support technology. Moreover, we ran extensive computer simulations to test the performance of the different systems in various circumstances. The numerical results suggest that the new approaches allow for more efficient use of existing capacity which improves the economic and environmental sustainability of online retail. Some of the tools are currently being implemented at our industrial partner.