Delft University of Technology
Faculty Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering Transport Technology
E.B.P. Jansen Exploring the future of Dante: The network analysis tool for TNT Express Masters thesis, Report 2006.TL.7103, Transport Engineering and Logistics.
TNT Express is the world's fourth largest provider of business to business express delivery services. With the help of over 48,000 employees worldwide operating 19,000 road vehicles, 43 jet aircraft and a network of over 900 depots, tens of thousands of parcels, documents and freight are delivered every day. With these numbers, it is not hard to imagine that the service network is very complex.
To maintain its leading position, a global optimisation (GO) project has been started by TNT Express in cooperation with ORTEC. Part of this project consists of the creation of several software tools to perform analysis and optimisations. One of the analysis tools is DANTE: Data ANalysis TNT Express. DANTE has been in use for over a year, and the obtained results are very promising. DANTE is developed in the (mathematical programming)
environment AIMMS. After intensive use and development of DANTE it is discovered that AIMMS has several limitations. These limitations form a problem concerning future requirements, like the analysis of larger amounts of data (longer periods of time and more and larger networks) and the inclusion of simulation. Therefore, it was decided to explore the possibilities of recreation of DANTE in an object oriented environment (Delphi 2006) and proceed development from there. This report is the result of this exploration.
The exploration starts with an analysis of the functionality of DANTE 1.0. This is done by providing a description of some of the most important reporting functionality, explained with examples and screenshots. Also, an analysis of the database behind DANTE 1.0 has been made. As a result of this analysis improvements concerning the performance and data integrity are suggested and implemented for the database of DANTE 1.5. Besides these
improvements, the database has also been extended to allow for the introduction of a new concept (the usage of sectors in routes).
At the same time, in cooperation with TNT Express an inventory is created with requirements for the future versions of DANTE. Based on these requirements and the improved database, an object oriented model is designed that will be used as the basis for DANTE 2.0. This model focuses on speed, low memory usage and more flexibility so that there will be no problem adapting the model in the future to new requirements. After evaluating some programming languages for the creation of the model, a choice has been made for Borland Developer Studio 2006. The designed model has been built in this developing environment.
The created object oriented model can be seen as a set of building blocks that can be used to create different applications. Since the model itself is not a usable application, two different applications are created to demonstrate the working and flexibility. The first application is for the creation of routes for networks were no route information is available. The application reads an existing time schedule (which can be compared to the schedule for a railway service: arrival and departure times for all vehicles) and creates routes for all possible origin/destination/service combinations in the database. After some fine tuning, the route creation application delivers the desired results. This route creation could not be performed well in the environment of AIMMS due to excessive memory usage and very high calculation times. The newly developed application is now a part of DANTE 1.5 which will be released to TNT Express by the end of 2006.
The second application demonstrates how the same model can also be used for simulation purposes. For this, an application has been developed that uses existing arrival and load patterns, and simulates the sorting process in a hub. By changing sorting capacities or truck-door usage, different scenarios can be analysed based on real-world data. Within the developed simulation application, a case has been created to investigate three ideas to improve the capacity of a large hub: assign trucks to docks based on free capacity at the docks, increase the number of docks and increase the sorting capacity and speed. The effect of all three ideas is demonstrated with the use of the created simulation, and the result could be used in the decision process.
Not enough information has been available to create a complete simulation that can be used in real-life scenarios. However, this case demonstrates that it is possible to incorporate simulation into the model without the need to rewrite large parts of the model and. TNT will continue the development of simulation and gather data as the hub community grows. The big advantage of using the same designed model is that actual data analysis can be mixed with simulation, of whatif scenarios from within one application. Further research in this area is advised.
Developing software within the new environment Borland Developer Studio 2006 allows for a new and more structured process. Different roles can be created for the programmer, interface creator and modeller/consultant. For larger projects like DANTE, also a software architect should be present in the team. By separating into these different roles, each member of the team can focus on his or her speciality. This will improve the quality of the end product and the developing speed.
Based on the new technical possibilities that exist in the new developing environment, several ideas are presented. These ideas focus mainly on the shift from desktop application to a client-server approach in the future. By using database servers for the storage of data, procedures can be developed where data is automatically gathered and prepared during the night time and in the morning the results can be inspected with DANTE. In the present situation, this gathering and preparation of the data is a time consuming task.
development in the current mathematical developing environment do not exist in the object oriented environment. On top of this, the new environment gives some new and very useful possibilities, both technical and process wise, which will improve the quality of the application. At this moment it is not yet clear how much time will be needed to port the current version of DANTE to the new environment. This is dependent on several factors, like the availability of programmers with the right expertise and if there are already any components available at ORTEC that can be used for DANTE.
The resulting application will be of great value for TNT Express. The limitations in the current environment do no longer exist, allowing for the analysis of larger amounts of data (larger networks, combined networks and longer periods of time). With the inclusion of simulation, a first step has been taken towards the goal to not only use DANTE for analysis, but also for what-if scenarios and optimisation.
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