the community foodbank of new jersey supermarket donation program case studies in operations...

The Community FoodBank of New Jersey Supermarket Donation Program

Case Studies in Operations Research

Prof. Michael Rothkopf Namrata Bedi

Konrad Borys

Hambir Chavan

Nadia Farooq

Indira Gazula

Nithin Kotla

Gabor Rudolf

Jose Torres

Objective• Give Projections for:

– Required number of truck outings– Total amount of meat collected – Average number of pallets in truck per trip– Total cost of pickup schemes– Unit cost of meat per pound of the pickup schemes

• Develop a cost efficient routing and scheduling strategy for the collection of donated products for the Stop & Shop Chain

Pilot Program

• Stop & Shop stores participating– Dayton, Monmouth Junction, Franklin Park,

Somerset and Watchung

• April 19, 23, 27, 30

• Time window for Pickups: 10am and 2pm

Pilot Program Route

Pilot Program in Pictures

Data Collected

• Quantity of food collected

• Travel time

• Loading time

• Fuel consumption

Observations• Average time spent at each store was 36 min

– Due to food inspections– Should lower to 15 to 20 min/store

• The actual travel time is about 40% greater than that estimated from Mapquest.

• Breaks during the pickup time window caused inconvenience.

• Unfrozen food at certain locations indicates possible drawbacks of longer interval between pickups.

Clusters and Routing for Stop & Shop

Projections with Weekly PickupsMeat/Week

LbsTotal Cost

$Unit Cost

CentsNumber of

Truck Outings

Stop & Shop 12,000 1000 8.3 7

3 ChainsStop & Shop

Wegmans

Shoprite

40,000 3000 7.3 25

5 ChainsStop & Shop

Wegmans

Shoprite

Pathmark

A & P

80,000 5000 6.4 45

Pickups Biweekly Vs Weekly

• PROS– Lower operational costs– Higher utilization of

space on trucks

• CONS– Possible loss of food due

to improper collection methods

– Inconvenience due to lack of storage space

– Reduces Total cost by about 50%

– Reduces Unit cost of by 35% to 45%

– Reduces total food collected by 10% to 20%

Factors affecting Unit Cost• Time Window for Pickups

Factors Affecting Unit Cost

• A 30 Min lunch break increases cost by approximately 10% and the number of truck outings by 12%.

Questions & Comments

orgroupies@yahoogroups.com

Scale Up Model• Divided NJ into 7 sections• Assumed that density of stores remains the same as in

Middlesex county• Calculated the average time between two stores while

considering– Stop&Shop– 3 chains(Stop&Shop,Shoprite,Wegmans)– 5chains(Stop&Shop,Shoprite,Wegmans,Pathmark,A&P)

• nj