DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8289899
title: Container Logistics Object-centric Event Log

description: General Description


Our company sells goods overseas. After receiving an order, the shipment of goods is scheduled. According to this schedule, the goods are picked up from the local production site and brought to a terminal where a logistics service provider receives and ships them.


This is an artificial event log according to the OCEL 2.0 Standard simulated using CPN-Tools. Both the CPN and the SQLite can be downloaded. 


Process Overview


From a customer order perspective, the process begins when the order is registered at our company (register customer order). After registration, a transport document is created in which details of the further process are recorded (create transport document).


Using this information, the logistics service provider is contacted to coordinate the transport of the ordered goods to the seaport. Twice a week, that provider sends a vehicle to a terminal, with a limited capacity for containers of ordered goods to be transported from the terminal to a seaport. For our company, available capacties vary from vehicle to vehicle, as we are not the only company booking spots. Once the logistics service provider receives our transport documents, they book capacities according to availability and container prioritizations in the upcoming weeks (book vehicles). Once the dates for transporting the goods to the terminal are set, our company contacts a container depot to reserve the required containers (order empty containers).


When a container’s vehicle departure approaches, the goods are prepared, packed and shipped to the terminal. For this purpose, a truck is sent to the container depot (pick up empty container). Meanwhile, the ordered goods to be shipped are packed into handling units at the production site. After loading the handling units (load truck), the truck drives the full container to the terminal (drive to terminal).


At the terminal, the container is picked up by a free forklift and weighed (weigh). Unless the vehicle departure is imminent, the container is placed in the storage location at the terminal (place in stock). Finally, it is moved to the vehicle (bring to loading bay, load to vehicle) which departs at a fixed time (depart).


Despite careful planning, containers sometimes miss a vehicle’s departure. In this case, the container is rescheduled to the next possible vehicle (reschedule container) and kept near the loading ramp until then.


Further information can be found at: https://www.ocel-standard.org/beta/event-logs/simulations/logistics/


General Properties 


An overview of log properties is given below.



	
		
			Property
			Value
		
	
	
		
			Event Types
			14
		
		
			Object Types
			7
		
		
			Events
			35761
		
		
			Objects
			14013
		
	



Control-Flow Behavior 


The behavior of the log is described by a respective object-centric Petri net. Also, individual object types exhibit behavior that can be described by simpler Petri nets. See below.



	
		
			Container
			Transport Documents
		
		
			Customer Order
			Truck
		
		
			Forklift
			Vehicle
		
		
			Handling Unit
			 
		
	



 


Object Relationships 


 


During the process, object-to-object relations can emerge at activity occurrences as follows.



	
		
			Activity
			Source Object Type
			Target Object Type
			Qualifier
		
	
	
		
			Create Transport
			Document
			Customer Order
			Transport Document
			TD for CO
		
		
			Book Vehicle
			Transport Document
			Vehicle
			Regular VH for TD
		
		
			Book Vehicle
			Transport Document
			Vehicle
			High-Prio VH for TD
		
		
			Order Empty
			Containers
			Transport Document
			Container
			CR for TD
		
		
			Pick Empty
			Container
			Truck
			Container
			TR loads CR
		
		
			Load Truck
			Container
			Handling Unit
			CR contains HU
		
		
			Reschedule
			Container
			Transport Document
			Vehicle
			Substitute VH for TD
		
	



Simulation Model 


The CPN used to create this event log can also be downloaded.To obtain simulated data, extract the linked ZIP file and play out the CPN therein, e.g., by using CPN Tools.


The play-out produces CSV files according to the schema of OCEL2.0. This Python notebook can be used to convert these files to an SQLite dump.


For a technical documentation of the simulation model, please open the attached CPN with CPN Tools and see the annotations therein.


Acknowledgements


Funded under the Excellence Strategy of the Federal Government and the Länder. Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany's Excellence Strategy - EXC-2023 Internet of Production - 390621612. We also thank the Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Stiftung for supporting our research.