Amazon Locker Capacity Management

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sethuraman, Samyukta, Bansal, Ankur, Mardan, Setareh, Resende, Mauricio G. C., Jacobs, Timothy L.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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_version_ 1866913369670287360
author Sethuraman, Samyukta
Bansal, Ankur
Mardan, Setareh
Resende, Mauricio G. C.
Jacobs, Timothy L.
author_facet Sethuraman, Samyukta
Bansal, Ankur
Mardan, Setareh
Resende, Mauricio G. C.
Jacobs, Timothy L.
contents Amazon Locker is a self-service delivery or pickup location where customers can pick up packages and drop off returns. A basic first-come-first-served policy for accepting package delivery requests to lockers results in lockers becoming full with standard shipping speed (3-5 day shipping) packages, and leaving no space left for expedited packages which are mostly Next-Day or Two-Day shipping. This paper proposes a solution to the problem of determining how much locker capacity to reserve for different ship-option packages. Yield management is a much researched field with popular applications in the airline, car rental, and hotel industries. However, Amazon Locker poses a unique challenge in this field since the number of days a package will wait in a locker (package dwell time) is, in general, unknown. The proposed solution combines machine learning techniques to predict locker demand and package dwell time, and linear programming to maximize throughput in lockers. The decision variables from this optimization provide optimal capacity reservation values for different ship options. This resulted in a year-over-year increase of 9% in Locker throughput worldwide during holiday season of 2018, impacting millions of customers.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2312_06579
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Amazon Locker Capacity Management
Sethuraman, Samyukta
Bansal, Ankur
Mardan, Setareh
Resende, Mauricio G. C.
Jacobs, Timothy L.
Optimization and Control
Artificial Intelligence
68T05, 90B05, 90B06, 90C90
G.1.6; I.2.6; I.2.8; I.6.3
Amazon Locker is a self-service delivery or pickup location where customers can pick up packages and drop off returns. A basic first-come-first-served policy for accepting package delivery requests to lockers results in lockers becoming full with standard shipping speed (3-5 day shipping) packages, and leaving no space left for expedited packages which are mostly Next-Day or Two-Day shipping. This paper proposes a solution to the problem of determining how much locker capacity to reserve for different ship-option packages. Yield management is a much researched field with popular applications in the airline, car rental, and hotel industries. However, Amazon Locker poses a unique challenge in this field since the number of days a package will wait in a locker (package dwell time) is, in general, unknown. The proposed solution combines machine learning techniques to predict locker demand and package dwell time, and linear programming to maximize throughput in lockers. The decision variables from this optimization provide optimal capacity reservation values for different ship options. This resulted in a year-over-year increase of 9% in Locker throughput worldwide during holiday season of 2018, impacting millions of customers.
title Amazon Locker Capacity Management
topic Optimization and Control
Artificial Intelligence
68T05, 90B05, 90B06, 90C90
G.1.6; I.2.6; I.2.8; I.6.3
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.06579