Research On Rural E-commence Logistics Milk-Run Model

Rural E-commerce is booming, the major express companies in China are putting more focus and resource on this emerging market. They are trying to provide more convenient service to improve their market share and harvest in the near future. They finish the "last mile" delivery and "first mile" collection via downtown operator.Nowadays, express companies are meeting several challenge:high cost, low speed and layout difficulties. This is because rural E-commence logistics cause longer transportation distance and more section. Especially, rural E-commerce is growing, which means the loading rate is also very low. To reduce the operation cost, the town agent will low their pick-delivery frequency, but this also low the efficiency.To attract more agents and maintain the partnership, express companies will pay extra subsidies. This reduces the risk of town agents in a certain extent, but the express companies must pay a higher cost. This paper argues that in initial stage of rural E-commence, rural E-commence logistics will still facing long-term problem of lack of goods, the current town agents direct delivery and collection model can’t solve the problem, and should make some difference. Based on the difficulties of layout and operation, the status of "long logistics chain+low consumption density", this paper provides a new model-Milk-run to solve the problem.We design the network structure and operation process, the facilities equipment needs, transportation plans and handling rules, define the responsibilities of the parties. We also research the foundation of the whole plan-interest allocation, given the interest distribution scheme. We design the VRP model with volume and time constraints, to meet the needs of all agents, with the minimum total transportation cost as the goal. We take the ant colony algorithm as reference, provides the tools to find the optimal routes and improve loading rate. We take Gulin County of Sichuan Province as an example, simulating the process of the implementation of Milk-run mode. By solving the model, We proved that the Milk-run mode is better than direct pick-delivery mode in terms of cost, and the advantage become even larger when the pick-delivery frequency is higher.And we also study the feasibility of this mode from the perspective of implementation. We believe that this mode low the total cost and improve the revenue of express company and town agents; also this mode low the car and labor investment of town agents, improving their willing to join, making express company easier to finish their layout strategy. The last chapter is the summary and expectation of this research.