An airfreight forwarder's shipment planning: simultaneous decisions on job, route and agent selection

Nowadays, because of the emergence of many online logistics platforms – some of which function as virtual marketplaces – airfreight forwarders are facing an increasing number of shipment requests and many choices of collaborating agents. They are also expected to handle a greater variety of shipments from an increasing number of origins and to an increasing number of destinations. In this paper, we address the three inter-related decisions of job selection, route selection and agent selection in the design of a shipment plan. We formulate this problem as a mixed 0-1 LP, with the objective of maximising profit. Using a numerical example, we analyse the effects of job and route selection and provide insights into various aspects of shipment planning.