Distribution of quantities

[CBO]

Hello,

we have a xTour API v1 setup where we are now facing the following requirement:

There are customers that get different quantities p.e. 145 m2 Volume per Week.
We want to find an optimal way to distribute the quantities among different orders.
Maybe it is more optimal to create orders: 70 / 40 / 35 m2 instead of: 70 / 70 / 5 m2.
It semms senseless to drive to a customer for a quantity of 5m2.

We were thinking of some sort of pre- xtour quantity split into small packages and then an optimization based on site-id.
So that we have at least a little optimization within the engine.
We could create 5m2 / 10m2 / 20m2 packages for example.

Is there a better approach or a parameter within xtour that might help us?

Best Regards
CB

[Bernd Welter]

Hello CB,

I'll try to summarize some key factors:
As described in the second part of Tour Optimization a la PTV there are several targets we want to optimize.
I understand that slicing the overall volume into pieces makes sense and the challenge for me is that the following two "solutions" are "100% equal" in terms of the goals:

- same amount of served orders (all)
- same amount of required vehicles
- same tour structures (distance + travel period)

Maybe targets
- earliest end of tour
- latest start of tour
could help BUT: they are creating the opposite of what you want. I recommend to get in touch with me 1:1. Give me a call!

Bernd

[Bernd Welter]

I spoke with ALex about this. Our recommendation is in fact to apply a slicing strategy which cuts a 100% order into several smaller orders based on a value of p% which can be defined by the user: Let's start with a value of 22% as a "minimum package size".
Create a new subpackage as long as the remaining volume is larger than "minimum package size":
100 -22 = 78 : 1st suborder with 22
78 - 22 = 56 : 2nd sub suborder with 22
56 - 22 = 34 : 3rd suborder with 22

Now the remaining 34 can't be reduced any more so finally we create 4 orders with the volumes (22 / 22 / 22 / 34).
Worst thing to happen is that a tour is created with only a single 22 order... As this value of 22 is accepted as the "minimal package" we are fine with that.

If the user doesn't like the result he could increase or decrease the minimum package size and recompute...

Best regards,
Bernd
PS: ensure to use proper SiteID values, too! This will have a positive impact for the result, too.