Container Logistics

Ocean freight consolidation and shipping optimization. Consolidates purchase orders into containers, selects optimal voyages, minimizes shipping costs while meeting delivery dates.

Previewproblem type container_logisticsmanifest 2.0

Objectives#

What the solver optimizes. Enabled objectives are weighed together.

Objective	What it means	Direction	On by default	Weight
Minimize Freight Cost `minimize_freight_cost`	Total slot cost of the sailings actually booked. A voyage costs its slot rate once anything is loaded on it and nothing if it is left empty, so this is summed over USED groups rather than per shipment.	minimize	Yes	1.0
Minimize Containers Used `minimize_containers`	Fewer boxes opened. Weighted below cost because a cheap extra container can still be the right answer when it avoids an express sailing.	minimize	Yes	0.5

Constraints#

A hard constraint must hold or the problem is infeasible; a soft one adds a penalty when broken.

Constraint	What it requires	Kind	On by default
Sailing Meets Delivery Date `delivery_deadline`	The sailing a shipment is loaded onto must ARRIVE no later than the date the cargo is due. This is the rule that makes the schedule a decision rather than a description - without it every voyage looks alike and the cheapest always wins.	hard	Yes
Cargo Ready Before Departure `cargo_ready_before_departure`	A shipment cannot sail before it exists. Its ready date must fall on or before the voyage's departure - the mirror of the deadline rule, and the reason a cheap late sailing is not always available to early cargo.	hard	Yes
Correct Destination Port `destination_port_match`	A shipment must be loaded onto a sailing bound for ITS discharge port. Ocean freight cannot be re-routed mid-ocean; a box on the wrong vessel is not a slower plan, it is the wrong plan.	hard	Yes
Container Volume Capacity `volume_capacity`	Shipments loaded into a container cannot exceed its declared cubic capacity. The defining rule of consolidation - an over-stuffed container is not a cheaper plan, it is not a plan.	hard	Yes
Container Weight Capacity `weight_capacity`	Gross weight per container within its declared limit. Weight and volume bind independently - dense freight exhausts the weight limit long before it fills the cube - so both are stated and a plan must satisfy both.	hard	Yes
Destination Consolidation `destination_cohesion`	Prefer containers whose shipments share a destination, so a container can be delivered without being broken down and re-sorted in transit. SOFT deliberately: mixed-destination containers are routine in ocean freight, so this is a preference the data supports rather than a requirement it states. Penalty counts the shipments outside the container's majority destination, so one stray costs one.	soft	Yes