Integrating Production and Logistics Operations in OEM Milk-Run Suplly Chain Within the Industry 4.0 Framework
The objective of this study is to investigate vehicle routing procedures to perform an OEM milk-run picking-up service over an urban road network. The manufacturing of components by OEM supplier’s is subject to varying tardiness on order release dates when fulfilling OEM orders. On the other hand, the vehicles that collect components to carry them to the OEM’s production line are submitted to speed variations along the route and possible route deviations due to traffic congestions. Tardiness control by the logistic operators, when delivering parts to the OEM production line, which is assumed to work according with the Industry 4.0 criteria, must also follow the new paradigm. In this context, IoT will be extensively adopted in smart sensor networks within the new cyber-physical environment, in association with a Big Data repository of productive information for production and logistic planning. The required integration of production and logistic operations in the Industry 4.0 context is analysed in the paper.