Sixth Sense Logistics: Challenges in supporting more flexible, ‘human-centric’ scheduling in the service sector

The need to conform to tight delivery and collection schedules can lead to increased pressures for logistics providers and inefficiencies in the services provided from an asset utilisation perspective. Transport behaviours, habits and practices in contemporary Westernized clock-time cultures are often situated around the notion of time being viewed as a scarce resource, with a high value placed on carving up this commodity into activities running punctually back-to-back (Norgate, 2006; Southerton et al., 2001).

Using an example from the service sector, this paper explores how service engineer jobs can be dynamically scheduled during the round in response to new job requests received to minimise client waiting time and transport costs (a multi-period dynamic vehicle scheduling problem (Angelelli et al., 2009)). The potential benefits of such an approach are presented along with the challenges of delivering it, with respect to the technology needed to help visualise the engineer’s current and future trajectories in relation to the incoming client calls. The research is being undertaken as part of the RCUK 6th Sense Transport project which is investigating how mobile technologies coupled to social networking principals can be leveraged to provide individuals with different ways to relate to time (present and future) and new understanding of the relationships between their own future transport plans and those of others around them (Davies et al., 2012).