Web-based 3D visualization system for road freight operations

Abstract

Contemporary supply chains have become more complex with the globalization. In this complexity, shorter product life cycles, more demanding customers, and increased product variety create a volatile and uncertain environment, which is becoming more and more costly for organizations. In order to maintain competitiveness, organizations must provide high-quality services and meet customer expectations by creating a flexible and responsive structure in this dynamic environment while reducing the cost of the operations. Information and communication technologies (ICT) have significant impact on supply chain performance in terms of collection, analysis, and transfer of information. Inter-organizational ICT and intra-organizational ICT are distinctly different roles of ICT within a supply chain. Intra-organizational ICT provides control and monitoring of internal processes, whereas inter-organizational ICT creates an environment to support collaboration and coordination among the organizations. Recently, the development of web technologies enhanced real-time information exchange in a cost-effective way leading to greater collaboration and rapid identification and efficient mitigation of potential risks in supply chain networks. Aim of this thesis project is to develop a web-based, client-side rendered 3D visualization system for freight operations to enhance competitiveness of the organizations in the supply chain. This novel system provides a real-time collaborative workspace to work on cargo consolidation, which could also be used in training program of new employees. Visualization of container content and animation of cargo loading, unloading, and rearrangement tasks increase visibility, improve workforce effectiveness, reduce operation time, and therefore contribute to cost reduction strategies. In addition to this, dynamic packing sequence algorithm (DPSA) is developed to place items into partially loaded ongoing trucks in the most efficient way. This feasible loading sequence solution provides great advantages such as maximizing truck utilization rate, more efficient asset utilization, and rapid response to unexpected last-minute events with ongoing trucks, thus creates a more flexible and agile structure. The visualization system has three-tier architecture. In the client tier, HTML5 and CSS are used to form the web page and Angular.js framework is used to extend capabilities of HTML5 for a more dynamic web page. Rich interaction experience is achieved by client-side rendering of the 3D graphics using Three.js framework. In the server tier, a web server is created by Express.js framework. The visualization logic is developed and implemented into the server along with the DPSA. Both for the visualization logic and the DPSA processes, the data is retrieved from the database, then sent to client-side for visualization. Data is stored in MongoDB in database tier which contains the vehicle fleet information such as truck routes, order details, item positioning and details of supply chain processes. Real-time client-client and server-clients communications are maintained by Socket.io framework. A working prototype is developed and tested with a comprehensive sample scenario, and results are presented. The visualization system has performed well and smoothly with all features. DPSA may bring new insights into container loading problems and may be implemented into other container optimization algorithms, and the functionality and efficiency of this system could be improved with further developments in the future.