Integrating arrival time estimation in truck scheduling: an explorative study in grocery retailing

This paper studies a new managerial approach that integratespredictive trucks’ estimated time of arrival (ETA) into truck schedul-ing to deal with the truck arrival time uncertainty. The approachexploits ETA to reschedule trucks by the up-to-date information andaims to minimize the trucks’ waiting time. The approach wasapplied in a real case. Results quantified the impact of adoptingETA for truck scheduling, also showing how the ETA accuracy andpeak truck arrival rate affect the total trucks’ waiting time. Thepaper enriches both truck scheduling literature, investigatinga new managerial approach to deal with truck arrival time uncer-tainty, which greatly threatens the synchronization of logisticsflows, and Industry 4.0 literature, showing how real-time data avail-ability can change traditional decision-making processes. Insightsfor the approach application are discussed, together with the eco-nomic, environmental, and social benefits by supply chain actors(i.e. carriers, warehouse managers, and drivers).