Modeling a baseline transportation network

If you have an existing transportation network, one of your first tasks is to create a baseline model of that data. Once you understand how your current route structure works, you can eliminate your current route and stop sequence structure to determine how transportation routes are optimized.

Transportation Optimization provides methods for defining your baseline route structure:

• Shipment Constraints baseline definition – Use the Shipment Constraints table to define baseline routes, including hubs and asset assignments.
• Additional Shipments Insertion Rule - In the Shipment Constraints table, this feature enables you to fix your routes, then introduce new shipments without reconstructing the entire network by specifying where shipments can be inserted in relation to the Shipment Constraints.
• Mandatory Routing Sequence – You can fix specific sites and customers as the first/last pickup or first/last delivery stop on a route. You specify this requirement using the Mandatory Routing Sequence column available in both the Sites and Customers tables.

The Baseline Solution column is copied from the input provided in the Shipment Constraints table. In this way, you can have multiple sets of baseline solutions in the Shipment Constraints input table, then decide which ones to use in scenarios based on the Baseline Solution value. The Baseline Solution in the Baseline Output Shipments table identifies which set of Shipment Constraints was used.

If you have not defined records in the Shipment Constraints table, the Baseline Solution value in the Baseline Output Shipments table is 0.