Route Optimization
Assembly Line
Heuristics on the high seas: Mathematical optimization for cargo ships
Google’s Operations Research team is proud to announce the Shipping Network Design API, which implements a new solution to the most efficient routes for shipping. Our approach scales better, enabling solutions to world-scale supply chain problems, while being faster than any known previous attempts. It is able to double the profit of a container shipper, deliver 13% more containers, and do so with 15% fewer vessels. Read on to see how we did it.
There are three components to the Liner Shipping Network Design and Scheduling Problem (LSNDSP). Network design determines the order in which vessels visit ports, network scheduling determines the times they arrive and leave, and container routing chooses the journey that containers take from origin to destination. Every container shipping company needs to solve all three challenges, but they are typically solved sequentially. Solving them all simultaneously is more difficult but is also more likely to discover better solutions.
Solutions to network design create service lines that a small set of vessels follow: for instance, sailing between eastern Asia, through the Suez canal, and to southern Europe. These service lines are published with dates, so that shippers can know when and where to have their containers ready at port.