Decision making by simulation in a parcel transportation company

This study is based on an actual simulation application project carried out for a parcel transportation company. In its current system, the company has a wide network of branches throughout the country. Although, it is good to have a large network in terms of accessibility and increasing the business volume, performing the same operations in almost every branch is costly ineffective. Consequently, the company managers considered merging several branches in the same neighborhood and carrying out most of the tasks in these central branches. As they consulted us to see if this idea is feasible or not, we decided to use simulation modeling. After carefully investigating the details of the system we developed a comprehensive model of this dynamic and complicated system and looked at the feasibility and also the limitations of their approach. After getting the results, we noticed that what they planned would not work out and developed another central branch design that could work out. Using design of experiments we obtained the behavior of the suggested system under different business scenarios. In this study, we describe the details of this interesting application of simulation modeling.