Análise das atividades de distribuição física de uma empresa distribuidora de alimentos da cidade de Campina Grande/PB à luz da metodologia de Clarke e Wright.

Abstract

The management of logistics activities can be the major factor of success for small businesses, ensuring obtaining competitive advantages. Among the logistics activities are highlighted as physical distribution activities, notably transport activity. The transportation management involves planning and control of deliveries, the company to its customers, and is considered one of the key areas of logistics to represent a significant portion of the costs. The transportation problem arises because there is usually a variety of destinations and costs related to the supply of these. Thus, there is a need to determine how much should be sent from a source to each destination served by minimizing the variables distance/costs. To solve this problem there are routing methods of transport, designed to reduce the cost of transport and/or length of service, providing savings for the company and improved service levels to customers. This research aims to identify opportunities for improvement in planning delivery routes in a food distribution company Campina Grande/PB, here identified as Campina Distribution (fictitious name). This analysis was made in the light of the method of Clarke and Wright (1964). As proposed application, the commercial points served by the company in the city of Campina Grande should be grouped into geographies areas. The application method was performed in 5 zones, corresponding to 15 neighborhoods. The selection criterion was the proximity of the neighborhoods together. Using Excel tool possible scripts were obtained and from these scripts, identified the best routes to cover each zone / area looking for the best gains in terms of distance traveled. Even without an empirical application, it is possible to realize improvement opportunities that the observation that test planning delivery routes for this company can provide its logistics services and assist in raising their competitiveness in terms of costs and improve services to customers, due to the minimization/elimination of the main problems identified.