· · · Institutional Repository

The development of a port strategy describing how the competitiveness of the port of Rotterdam for the case of inter-port competition between the major container ports in the Hamburg-Le Havre Range can sustainably be improved.

An ex-ante evaluation of CO2-emission reducing policy for container transport in the Netherlands, with a GIS-based model that uses detailed characteristics of modes.

This report contains the detailed course of designing an ontology that formalises the domain knowledge of City Logistics and in turn facilitates relevant agent-based modelling. Validation and example of application are also included. The formal output of this work is an ontology document edited with Web Ontology Language (OWL) and is named as 'City_logistics_ontology.owr.

Master thesis project on the application of a systems approach to improve organizational performance. The demand planning process at a pharmaceutical company is analyzed to identify the root causes for the low performance levels at their local sales organizations. These root causes are translated into a redesign of the demand planning system to achieve better results.

Many large airport face problems of congestion in the terminal. Several studies have identified the check-in process as the bottleneck process. However, proposed solutions in literature are limited to changes inside the terminal. In this research, a wider supply chain perspective is applied to the passenger and baggage flows of airports. An off-airport baggage check-in service is developed for the case of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, with the focus on logistics organization and the business model.

As a result of the shift in focus from outbound logistics, which includes the flows to the customers, to inbound logistics, an inbound logistics decision support model is developed in this research report. This model offers the user the possibility to discover the potentials that are resting in optimizing inbound logistics. The design of this model is based on the next design statement: "Develop a model to assess and quantify the effect of inbound logistic concepts on costs".

Driving forces for transport companies to implement sustainable fleet measures are the rising demand for green transportation and consciousness for the importance of a sustainable responsible business. Furthermore, transport companies face difficulties with upcoming stringent legislation on environmental zone access. Challenges rise when sustainable measures need to be implemented, since most measures are still in their infancy or no elaborate experience is available and since environmental benefits have to be balanced with investments. The aim of this research is to assist DHL the Netherlands with the sustainability strategy decision-making process. The research focused primarily on opportunities for reducing C02-emissions, by presenting measures which can be applied on the large goods fleet of the Express division of DHL the Netherlands. The main research question was formulated as follows: 'To what extent can the transport of large goods of DHL the Netherlands be optimized from the perspective of C02-reduction and under which conditions will a reduction in CO2-emission in practice actually occur?'

CEVA Logistics in The Hague is a 3PL that performs logistics activities for its customers. These activities include transportation and different warehousing activities. CEVA's main customer is KPN. It shows that the capacity needed in order to perform the activities at CEVA is not scheduled properly. This is caused by fluctuating demand and late knowledge of the demand. KPN forwards the demand of their customers towards CEVA, however the demand is only known the evening before and during the day. The effect is that there is over- or under capacity, which causes that overtime is needed or extra temporary personnel is needed at the last moment. This will lead to low productivity and extra costs. To better schedule the required capacity a forecasting and planning tool was developed. The main research question is: Can costs be saved and the service level increased by using a forecasting and planning tool? Cooperation with KPN in the development process of this tool is important, because KPN knows when the demand gets influenced by sales promotions, introductions and back orders. The most labour-intensive process is the outbound handling, therefore it is important to schedule the capacity for these processes accurate. The objective of this project is to design a forecasting and planning tool with which the demand of the customers of KPN of the 6 outbound handling order processes can be forecasted and with which the required capacity can be scheduled more accurate at CEVA.

KLM Cargo would like to improve short-term resource scheduling at their World Port cargo handling terminal, in order to increase both quality and efficiency of their service. Forecasts of air cargo demand could support decisions on manpower deployment. This thesis contains a forecast comparison study for short-term forecasts of the amount of departing cargo from World Port in kilograms per day, based on historical booking data. A single regression forecast model on pre-departure booking levels came up as top-performing model, capable of predicting cargo demand per day with only 3% mean absolute percentage error. This thesis also examines departure behaviour over the course of each day of the week. Furthermore, arrival behaviour is analysed, which is defined as the connection between the departure flow and several arrival flows at the terminal. The main conclusions out of the behavior analyses is that cargo departure is unevenly spread out over each day and that cargo is delivered at World Port relatively far in advance of planned departure.

The logistics department of Schiphol Airport Retail supplies 14 shops behind custom gates on Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. This research describes improvements to the shop supply system with the use of demand forecast and decoupling moments.

The Netherlands has a tradition of using mathematical models in policy and decision making in transport (and other sectors). In an effort to improve the information provided to policy makers and to maximise the added value of the existing instruments and available knowledge and data, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment decided to work towards a new freight transport model. The first step in the building process is a basic model called BASGOED (“BAS” stands for “basic” and “GOED” means “good”). This model is meant as fundamental corner stone for an incremental building process leading to a modular, transparent and flexible set of instruments for policy making in the area of freight transport.

In this thesis the current inventory control at the Defence Material Organisation is analysed in light of the pending implementation of the SAP-ECC/DFPS ERP-system for demand forecasting and inventory control. The scope for this research has been set on the demand forecasting of weapon systems related spare parts under training and peace-time conditions. This was done for the Directorate of Material Policy of the Defence Material Organisation (DMO).