SNDP with Asset Management: repositioning of empty containers

Starting from the existing literature in Service Network Design Problems with asset management, the goal of this work is to manage the usage of containers, both at a strategical level, that is initial acquisition and allocation, and at a tactical level, that is usage and re-allocation. The expected outcome of the model is, given a hub-and-spoke network of terminals and marshaling yards and a set of commodities to be delivered within specific time intervals, the optimal number of containers to purchase and where to initially allocate them. Moreover, the model considers the possibility to rent idle containers as storage space at terminals for a fixed periodic fee, that is taken into account when computing the objective function. After providing a suitable model for the purpose, a computational study is conducted with the AIMMS software, and an analysis of the sensitivity to different parameters and to the network’s size is provided. Finally, the work is concluded providing managerial insights about possible uses of the model. This master thesis has been conducted with both the supervision of Polytechnic of Turin’s DIGEP (Dipartimento Ingegneria Gestionale e della Produzione) and TU Darmstadt’s chair of Management and Logistics.