Truck Delivery Scheduling System with a Mobile Communication Feature

In this paper, we propose a practical method for solving the delivery scheduling problem and discuss its implementation. The method is based on the cooperative problem solving with multiple agents. In the truck delivery scheduling method, the covered region is partitioned into multiple sub-regions and each sub-region is assigned a sub-problem solving agent. For integrating those subproblem solving agents, an integration-and-evaluation agent solves the total problem. We discuss the functions for building cooperative decision support system in a mobile environment in delivery scheduling domain. We consider a delivery center with function, i.e., generating and integrating delivery schedule, acquiring and managing the information shared commonly by all delivery persons, and dispatching the selected information to delivery persons, and the mobile terminal, which a delivery person uses for exchanging information with the center. By employing the cooperative problem-solving framework for the delivery-scheduling problem, we achieved an easy incorporation of various evaluation parameters in the process of scheduling, efficient use and management of scheduling knowledge of various levels, and reduction of computer processing by division of the problem into sub-problems.