Inland freight management
AssigneeTarget Brands, Inc.
InventorRichard S. Gabrielson
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An inland freight management module for managing inland moves of freight from a plurality of vendor supply locations to port includes a profile maintenance component, a load planning component, and a load routing and booking component. The profile maintenance component is adapted for maintaining an inland planning zone profile including information relating to a plurality of inland planning zones generated according to one or more customs districts. The load planning component is programmed for planning field consolidation of one or more container loads via a multi-stop route between the plurality of vendor supply locations, where the multi-stop route is generated within one of the plurality of inland planning zones.
Claims20
An inland freight management apparatus comprising:
- means for generating a customs-district-based zone;
- means for identifying a plurality of partial load freight shipments to be received from a plurality of suppliers;
- means for field consolidating a full container from the partial load freight shipments by generating at least one route between the plurality of suppliers and within the customs district-based zone;
- means for centrally consolidating a full container from the partial load freight shipments by generating a plurality of consolidator routes from the suppliers to a consolidator;
- and
- means for determining field consolidation efficiency by determining a percentage field consolidation based on a first number of the plurality of partial load freight shipments and a second number of field consolidated loads actually built.
A computer-implemented method of moving product from a plurality of product supply locations to a port of origin, the method comprising:
- generating via access to a computer database or computer network a plurality of planning zones based upon one or more customs districts;
- identifying via the computer database or computer network a plurality of partial container load product shipments to be received from a plurality of product supply locations;
- field consolidating a full container load from the partial container load product shipments by generating at least one multi-stop route within one of the plurality of planning zones;
- centrally consolidating a full container load from the partial container load product shipments by generating a plurality of consolidator routes from the product supply locations to a consolidator;
- and
- determining by a computer field consolidation efficiency by determining a percentage field consolidation based on a first number of the plurality of partial container load product shipments and a second number of field consolidated loads actually built.
A method of consolidating freight into container loads, the method comprising:
- generating by a computer via access to a computer database or computer network a plurality of inland planning zones based upon one or more customs districts;
- identifying via the computer database or computer network a plurality of partial shipments to be received from a plurality of supply locations;
- field consolidating a container load from the partial shipments by generating, by the computer, at least one multi-stop route within one of the plurality of inland planning zones and loading the partial shipments from the plurality of supply locations onto a truck to make the container load;
- initially assigning the container load for shipment to one of a plurality of importation gateways;
- and
- generating a gateway balancing recommendation for the container load by determining a gateway demand for each of the plurality of importation gateways, determining a handicapped gateway demand from the gateway demands for each of the plurality of importation gateways, and determining gateway capacity for each of the plurality of importation gateways.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.