Patent ID: 7983942

Claim:
A method of modeling incompatibilities in a transportation planning and optimization system, comprising: providing, by a computer, a data structure for a field catalogue, the field catalogue providing data field attributes, each of the attributes representing one of freight units, vehicles, and cross-docking locations, respectively; providing, by the computer, a data structure for a plurality of compatibility types, the data structure providing for each compatibility type data fields for: a first entry for linking the compatibility type structure with a first attribute of the field catalogue; a second entry for linking the compatibility type structure with a second attribute of the field catalogue; providing a number of different compatibility types, each compatibility type being described by values of the data fields as defined in the provided compatibility type data structure; providing a number of compatibility rules, each compatibility rule specifying a combination of two values which refer to first and second attributes of a defined compatibility type, and being indicative whether or not they are compatible, applying, by the computer, the compatibility rules to determine compatible combinations of freight units, vehicles, and cross-docking locations for the shipments of the transportation plan; determining, by the computer, a transportation plan for a plurality of orders, each order defined by a set of characteristics, at least one characteristic including a number of freight units to be transported from a predetermined place of departure to a predetermined place of destination, each freight unit representing a predefined good, the transportation plan including a plurality of vehicles for transporting freight units, and a plurality of cross-docking locations for loading/unloading freight units onto/from vehicles, each of the freight units, vehicles, and cross docking locations being specified by attributes retained in the field catalogue; defining shipments within the transportation plan, each shipment specifying the vehicles, and cross-docking locations needed to fulfill a plurality of orders, wherein incompatible number of freight units, vehicles, and cross-docking locations are not allowed within the same shipment.