North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe About The NTFB • Distributes foods through 1, 146 feeding programs in 13 North Texas counties • Over ½ billion pounds of food distributed between 1982 to 2010 • Goal: provide access to 50 million meals by the end of 2011

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe The Problem Have several delivery routes and only 5 docks – Each route has a unique travel time and deadline – Long loading times (1 to 2 hours) – Certain vehicle types can only use certain docks – Route schedule repeats monthly Current solution in place: First Come, First Serve

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe The Solution • Gather data (deadlines, driving logs, etc) • Develop assignment algorithm • Use algorithm to assign each route to a time slot for each day Deliverable to Customer: Daily schedule of truck routes for one month’s time period

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe The Results • Model – Simplified algorithm • Compute latest departure time Deadline - (Starting Time + Driving Time) • Sort from lowest to highest result to set priority • Repeated for each day’s routes

Priority Schedule for Drop-off Routes April 2011 Mon Tues 1 Weds 2 Thurs 3 Wilkinson Center 8 24 Collin 1 8 08 AIDS Resource Denton 1 9 10 Fannin 2 8 15 Center Vickery-Meadow 9 22 North Dallas - 8 22 Lamar 2 Shared Ministries Collin 3 Share Care 8 49 Fri 4 Sand Branch Mobile 8 15 5 The Stewpot 9 01 Collin 2 9 29 8 32 8 56 13 13 Food Bank 8 9 10 11 Wilkinson Center 8 24 Collin 1 8 08 AIDS Resource Vickery-Meadow 9 22 North Dallas - 8 22 Center Shared Ministries Collin 3 15 8 49 16 8 15 Kaufman 1 8 33 Hunt 2 8 35 Share Care 8 56 17 8 24 Collin 1 8 08 Hunt 1 8 09 Vickery-Meadow 9 22 Fannin 2 8 15 AIDS Resource 8 15 North Dallas - 8 22 Center Collin 3 22 Share Care 8 40 The Stewpot 9 01 19 8 56 8 49 23 24 25 Wilkinson Center 8 24 Collin 1 8 08 AIDS Resource Vickery-Meadow 9 22 North Dallas - 8 22 Center Shared Ministries Collin 3 Ellis 1 18 Wilkinson Center Shared Ministries 12 8 49 8 15 Kaufman 1 8 33 Hunt 2 8 35 Share Care 8 56 26 Ellis 1 8 40 The Stewpot 9 01

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe The Results • Constraints – Unscheduled Routes • Call-in routes are too random to be predicted • Not able to be addressed in model – Loading Time • Conflict on Tues 2 and 16 as well as Weds 10 and 24, all routes cannot be met on schedule given the current loading time. • Needs to be addressed in immediate future. Likely to increase over time if not addressed

North Texas Food Bank Jeffrey Swafford Jonathan Barger Preston Holcombe Recommendations • Short-term – Have one or more of the trucks loaded up before close of business the day before for the 2 nd, 10 th, 16 th and 24 th in order to meet deadlines • Long-term – Look into ways of decreasing loading times. Suspected to increase further over time if not addressed – Look into installing more docking stations if at all possible

Questions?