International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.

3, 2011

Data Mining Analytics to Minimize Logistics Cost

Abraham Paul1
School of Information Technology and Engineering VIT University Vellore, TN India abrahampaul@vit.ac.in
1 2

V.Saravanan2
Department of Computer Applications Dr. NGP Institute of Technology Coimbatore, TN India tvsaran@hotmail.com

P. Ranjit Jeba Thangaiah3

3

Department of Computer Applications Karunya University Coimbatore, TN India prjt@live.com

Abstract
Transportation and Logistics are a major sector of the economy; however data analysis in this domain has remained largely in the province of optimization. The potential of data mining and knowledge discovery techniques is largely untapped. This paper is about solving vehicle routing problem using Operation Research (OR) approach in analysis and design phases and we use JAVA programming language to model the problem. The results obtained from both solutions are compared in order to make analysis and prove the object-oriented model correctness. We proved that both results are identical and have the same results when solving the problem using the five methods: northwest corner method; minimum cost method; row minimum cost method; column minimum cost method, and Vogels approximation method. We also suggest several challenging problems to precipitate research and galvanize future work in this area.

Keywords: Data Mining, Transportation problem, Linear Programming, Object-oriented

Programming

1. Introduction
Data mining currently is a hot topic research area and is applied in database, artificial intelligence, statistics, and so on. It may discover valuable knowledge and the patterns in the large-scale database for users. Third Party Logistics (3PL) providers are competing worldwide through Logistics Optimization to reduce costs while achieving high delivery standards. Logistics optimization is currently the biggest opportunity for most companies in order to attain significant reduction in operational costs. It can save 3PL providers up to 10 40% on operational costs by improving decisions such as the optimal selection of inventory placement and transportation modes. Transportation and logistics are an important sector of the economy. Transportation consumes 60% of oil worldwide [9], and the number is increasing. Data mining has lead to significant gains in other areas, and should also be used to improve this sector of our economy. Computer use is widespread in transportation and logistics. Inventory management, parcel tracking and even on-truck location] sensors provide a wealth of data. This seems a natural application area for data mining, however, to date, there have been few success stories. There has been some mining with freight flow data, but with transactional characteristics of freight and events such as safety/accident records rather than the geometry of the network. For example, classification on safety/accident records might find that trucks are prone to accidents at 7:00AM on east - west roads (i.e., when the sun is in the drivers eyes.) A similar problem could be to find conditions in which trucks suffer from mechanical failure to predict a requirement for

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 maintenance. Existing methods that utilize the network structure fall within the domain of optimization. Optimization techniques have long been computerized, but do not provide the kinds of insights that are the goal of data mining. These optimization techniques generally fix certain constraints and allow a manageable number of free variables to be adjusted to achieve minimal cost. The goal of our data mining is not to better optimize these free variables, but to generate knowledge that enables a business to adjust its process to modify the constraints, enabling the optimization to generate a lower cost solution. Optimization may realize a feasible solution, but data mining could find patterns where constraints could be modified or re-defined to provide a more robust optimal solution. One of the few reported data mining successes in this area involves management of inventory levels [1,2], where the constraints on safety stocks were modified to achieve lower inventory and higher in stock rates.

1.1 Logistics optimization

The third-party logistics provider (3PL) performs logistics services on behalf of another company. There are two primary kinds of 3PL Providers. Type 1 assumes infinite production on supply depot and their only concern is to meet the demand at the delivery nodes. Type 2 3PL providers perform the functions of meeting the demands and also taking into consideration the safety stock and the economic order quantity at the demand node. In order to achieve this, these companies need to maintain certain inventory at their warehouse in order to perform on- time delivery and achieve a certain service level.

Figure 1: A Common Network Logistics optimization problem for the Type 1 3PL can be solved with the Vehicle Routing Problem in order to minimize transportation costs. For the Type 2 3PL Company, logistics optimization is achieved by vehicle routing problem and additionally minimizing the inventory carrying costs at their warehouse. A logistics optimization problem starts with defining the network. Figure 1 illustrates a common network with one supply depot and various demand nodes. The Vehicle Routing Problem determines the routes for the network. Vehicle Routing Problem for all 3PL providers The Vehicle Routing Problem determines the set of routes with overall minimum route cost which services all the demands for a given a fleet of vehicles, a service depot, and several demand nodes. Figure 2 shows different types of vehicle routings and also lists the solutions to find the optimized routes.

Figure 2: The Vehicle Routing Problem

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011

1.2 Inventory optimization for type 2 3PL providers

For the second type of 3PL, the additional objective is to meet the desired service level and supplying the Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) at the demand nodes. This is done cost effectively by maintaining inventories at the 3PL provider warehouse. This can be achieved by the inventory optimization model with the following objective function: Minimize inventory holding cost, shortage and backlogs. The model minimizes the inventory holding costs ensuring the best feasible solution considering all the constraints. The optimization model considers the following variable and constraints: Demands and EOQ calculations at the delivery nodes Products and/or product groups Penalties on safety stock (Backlog penalties, Shortage penalties) Warehouse Constraints (Warehouse capacity) Inventory Constraints (Inventory holding capacity by product and/or product group) Inventory holding costs The output of the model provides the optimum inventory levels by product at the warehouse in order to meet the demands at a certain service level and also minimize the inventory holding cost.

1.3 Other optimization models

Additional function of consolidation of inventories can be added in the above described model, based on the requirement. Here the objective is to convert all Less than Truck Loads (LTL) to Full Truck Loads (FTL). Also, an optimum daily dispatch plan can be created by for a given network and for a range of product. The objective function is to minimize transportation costs, inventory holding costs and penalty costs in order to minimize consumption of safety stock and avoid backlogs. The function can be modeled mathematically as below: Minimize Transportation Costs) + (Inventory Holding Costs) + (Penalties) The objective function is subjected to the following parameters: Demand shortage Net demand Actual opening inventory Safety stock shortage Supply Penalty cost for late shipment,early shipment and safety stock consumption In transit supply Shipment quantity Node capacity violation Transportation Costs (Fixed and Variable) Product quantity No. of Transports Inventory carrying cost Logistics optimization provides strength and value to the 3PL supply chain. Companies are allocating resources and money to make their logistics departments more efficient and economic. Through proper planning and using the right logistics optimization tools, companies can acquire considerable cost reduction across their logistics & distribution operation and can accomplish better delivery standards.

1.4 Predictive analytics

We use historical data intelligently to develop a view of future market trends and help our clients focus on the right audiences thereby developing their competitive edges.

2. Data mining method

The analytical techniques used in data mining are often well-known mathematical algorithms and techniques. What is new is the application of those techniques to general business problems made possible by the increased availability of data and inexpensive storage and processing power. Also, the use of graphical interfaces has led to tools becoming available that business experts can easily use. Some of the tools used for data mining are [2]:

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 1) Artificial neural networks. On-linear predictive models that learn through training and resemble biological neural networks in structure. 2) Decision trees. Tree-shaped structures that represent sets of decisions. These decisions generate rules for the classification of a dataset. 3) Rule induction. The extraction of useful if-then rules from data based on statistical significance. 4) Genetic algorithms. Optimization techniques based on the concepts of genetic combination, mutation, and natural selection. 5) Nearest neighbor. A classification technique that classifies each record based on the records most similar to it in an historical database.

2.1. Association rules mining

Association rule mining finds interesting associations and/or correlation relationships among large set of data items. Association rules show attributes value conditions that occur frequently together in a given dataset. Association rules identify collections of data attributes that are statistically related in the underlying data. An association rule is of the form X => Y where X and Y are disjoint conjunctions of attribute-value pairs. The confidence of the rule is the conditional probability of Y given X, Pr(Y|X), and the support of the rule is the prior probability of X and Y, Pr(X and Y). Here probability is taken to be the observed frequency in the data set. The traditional association rule mining problem can be described as follows. Given a database of transactions, a minimal confidence threshold and a minimal support threshold, find all association rules whose confidence and support are above the corresponding thresholds. The steps of association rules mining based on data cube as follows Step1: mining frequent item-set which satisfies the minimum support on data cube Step2: association rules of frequent item-set are generated.

2.2. Intelligent transportation systems application

In the ITS, violating regulation information, driver information and vehicle information are quite tedious. This original data is difficult to mine out the effective patterns. Data selection and cleaning are first. Then integrate the data, process data and start mining. Finally, the patterns that are mined out are evaluated. Mining process is as shown in Fig.1

Figure 3: Mining process

3. Transportation problem
The first main purpose is solving transportation problem using five methods of transportation model by linear programming (LP). The second main purpose is solving transportation problem by objectoriented programming. C++ programming language is used to get the solution. The results obtain from both LP and object oriented programming solutions are compared. The five methods for solving Transportation problem are:

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 1. Northwest Corner method 2. Minimum cost method 3. Vogels approximation method 4. Row Minimum Method 5. Column Minimum Method This paper introduces methods for solving transportation problem by C++ programming language; we use flow chart, algorithms and consider the importance of defining a problem sufficiently and what assumptions we may consider during the solution. Solving transportation problem by computer involves serves of steps: define the problem, analysis the problem and formulate a method to solve it, describe the solution in the form of an algorithm, draw a flow chart of the algorithm, write the computer program, compile and run the program, test the program and interpretation of results. We design Object-Oriented Model as decision support tool to evaluate the solution for the five methods using JAVA language. After designing the five models (the five programs) we compare between each solution using JAVA programs and LP solution which have the same result. Comparison between different solutions is done for choosing less value of the objective function so that the user will be able to make decision.

4. Transportation model
Transportation model is a special type of networks problems that for shipping a commodity from source (e.g. factories) to destinations (e.g. warehouse). Transportation model deal with get the minimum-cost plan to transport a commodity from a number of sources(m) to number of destination (n). Let si is the number of supply units required at source i (i=1, 2, 3. m), dj is the number of demand units required at destination j (j=1, 2, 3.. n) and cij represent the unit transportation cost for transporting the units from sources i to destination j. Using linear programming method to solve transportation problem, we determine the value of objective function which minimize the cost for transporting and also determine the number of unit can be transported from source i to destination j. If xij is number of units shipped from source i to destination j. the equivalent linear programming model[7] will be as follows. The objective function

Subject to

Figure 4: Network representation of the transportation problem for i=1,2,..m. for j=1,2,...,n and xij 0 for all i to j.

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A transportation problem is said to be balanced if the total supply from all sources equals the total demand in all destinations.

5. METHODS FOR SOLVING TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM

There are five methods to determine the solution for balanced transportation problem: The five methods differ in the "quality" of the starting basic solution they produce and better starting solution yields a smaller objective value. We present the five methods and an illustrative example is solved by these five methods.

5.1 North West-Corner Method

The method starts at the northwest-corner cell (route) of the tableau (variable x11) (i)Allocate as much as possible to the selected cell and adjust the associated a mounts of supply and demand by subtracting the allocated amount. (ii)Cross out the row or Column with zero supply or demand to indicate that no further assignments can be made in that row or column. If both a row and a column net to zero simultaneously, cross out one only and leave a zero supply (demand in the uncrossed-out row column). (iii) If exactly one row or column is left uncrossed out, stop .otherwise, move to the cell to the right if a column has just been crossed out or below if a row has been crossed out .Go to step (i). [6]

5.2. Minimum-Cost Method

The minimum-cost method finds a better starting solution by concentrating on the cheapest routes. The method starts by assigning as much as possible to the cell with the smallest unit cost. Next, the satisfied row or column is crossed out and the amounts of supply and demand are adjusted accordingly. If both a row and a column are satisfied simultaneously, only one is crossed out, the same as in the northwest corner method .Next ,look for the uncrossed-out cell with the smallest unit cost and repeat the process until exactly one row or column is left uncrossed out . [6]

5.3 Vogels Approximation Method (VAM)

Vogels Approximation Method is an improved version of the minimum-cost method that generally produces better starting solutions. (i) For each row (column) determine a penalty measure by subtracting the smallest unit cost element in the row (column) from the next smallest unit cost element in the same row (column). (ii) Identify the row or column with the largest penalty. Break ties arbitrarily. Allocate as much as possible to the variable with the least unit cost in the selected row or column .Adjust the supply and demand and cross out the satisfied row or column. If a row and column are satisfied simultaneously, only one of the two is crossed out, and the remaining row (column) is assigned zero supply (demand). (iii) (a) If exactly one row or column with zero supply or demand remains uncrossed out, stop. (b) If one row (column) with positive supply (demand) remains uncrossed out, determine the basic variables in the row (column) by the least cost method .stop. (c) If all the uncrossed out rows and columns have (remaining) zero supply and demand, determine the zero basic variables by the least-cost method .stop. ).[6] (d) Otherwise, go to step (i).

5.4 Row Minimum Method

Row minimum method start with first row and choose the lowest cost cell of first row so that either the capacity of the first supply is exhausted or the demand at jth distribution center is satisfied or both. Three cases arise:

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 (i)If the capacity of the first supply is completely exhausted, cross off the first row and proceed to the second row. (ii)If the demand at jth distribution center is satisfied, cross off the jth column and reconsider the first row with the remaining capacity. (iii)If the capacities of the first supply as well as the demand at jth distribution center are completely satisfied, make a zero allocation in the second lowest cost cell of the first row .cross off the row as well as the jth column and move down to the second row. Continue the process for the resulting reduced transportation table until all the rim conditions (supply and demand condition) are satisfied. [8]

5.5 Column Minimum Method

Column minimum method starts with first column and chooses the lowest cost cell of first column so that either the demand of the first distribution center is satisfied or the capacity of the ith supply is exhausted or both .three cases arise: (i)If the demand of the first distribution center is satisfied, cross of the first column and move right to the second column. (ii)If the capacity of ith supply is satisfied, cross off ith row and reconsider the first column with the remaining demand. (iii)If the demands of the first distribution center as well as the capacity of the ith supply are completely satisfied, make a zero allocation in the second lowest cost cell of the first column. Cross of the column as well as the ith row and move right to the second column. Continue the process for the resulting reduced transportation table until all the rim conditions are satisfied.

6. ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE (SUNRAY TRANSPORTATION)

Sun Ray Transportation Company ships truckloads of grain from three silos to four mills [6]. The supply (in truckloads) and the demand (also in truckloads) together with the unit transportation costs per truckload on the different routes are summarized in the transportation model in table 1. Table 1. Transportation model of example (SunRay Transportation)

The model seeks the minimum-cost shipping schedule between the silos and the mills. This is equivalent to determining the quantity xij shipped from silo i to mill j (i=1, 2, 3; j=1, 2, 3, 4)

6.1. Northwest-Corner method

The application of the procedure to the model of the example gives the starting basic solution in table.2.

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 Table 2. The starting solution using Northwest-corner method

The Starting basic Solution is given as x11=5, x12=10, x22=5, x23=15, x24=5, x34=10 The objective function value is Z=510+102+57+159+520+1018=$520

6.2 Minimum Cost Method

The minimum-cost method is applied to Example (SunRay Transportation) in the following manner: 1. Cell (1,2) has the least unit cost in the tableau (=$2).the most that can be shipped through (1,2) is x12=min (15,15)=15 which happens to satisfy both row 1 and column 2 simultaneously, we arbitrarily cross out column 2 and adjust the supply in row 1 to 0. 2. Cell (3,1) has the smallest uncrossed-out unit cost (=$4).Assign x31=5, cross out column 1 because it is satisfied and adjust the demand of row 3 to 10-5=5 truckloads. 3.continuing in the same manner ,we successively assign 15 truckloads to cell (2,3), 0 truckloads to cell (1,4), 5 truckloads to cell(3,4) and 10 truckloads to cell (2,4). The resulting starting solution is summarized in this table.3. The arrows show the order in which the allocations are made. The starting solution (consisting of 6 basic variables) is x12=15, x14=0, x23=15, x24=10, x31=5, x34=5 The associated objective function value is Z=152+011+159+1020+5+518 = $475 The quality of the least cost starting solution is better than of the northwest corner method because it yields a smaller value of Z ($475 versus $520 in the north-west corner method. Table 3. The starting solution using minimum-cost method

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6.3 Vogels Approximation Method (VAM)

VAM is applied to Example (SunRay Transportation) in the following manner Table 4. Step1 to determine the starting solution using (VAM)

1. We computes from row 3 because row 3 has the largest penalty =10 and cell (3,1) has the smallest unit cost in the row, the amount 5 is assigned to x31.Column 1 is now satisfied and must be crossed out. Next, new penalties are recomputed in the table. 5. 2. Shows that row 1 has the highest penalty(=9).hence ,we assign the maximum amount possible to cell (1,2),which yields x12=15and simultaneously satisfies both row 1 and column 2 .we arbitrarily cross out column 2 and adjust the supply in row 1 to zero as table. 6. Table 5. Step2 to determine the starting solution using (VAM)

Table 6. Step3 to determine the starting solution using (VAM)

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3.Continuing in the same manner, row 2 will produce the highest penalty (=11) and we assign x23=15, which crosses out column 3 and leaves 10 units in row 2 .Only column 4 is left ,and it has a positive supply of 15 units . Applying the least-cost method to that column, we successively assign x14=0, x34=5and x24=10 (verify!) as table. 7. Table 7. Step 4 to determine the starting solution using (VAM)

The associated objective function value is Z=152 + 011 + 159 + 1020 + 54 + 518=$475. VAM produces a better starting Solution.

6.4 Row Minimum Method

Row minimum method is applied to example (SunRay Transportation) in table. 8. Table 8. The starting solution using row minimum method

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 The associated objective function value is Z = 152+125+915+205+1018 = $505 This cost is less than northwest-corner method

6.5 Column Minimum Method

Column minimum method is applied to Example (SunRay Transportation) in table. 9. The associated objective function value is Z =45 +152 +915 +1020 +185 =$ 475. This cost is less than northwest-corner method. Table 9. The starting solution using column minimum method

6.6 COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FIVE METHODS

North-west corner method is used when the purpose of completing demand No. 1 and then the next and is used when the purpose of completing the warehouse No. 1 and then the next. Advantage of northwest corner method is quick solution because computations take short time but yields a bad solution because it is very far from optimal solution. Vogel's approximation method and Minimum-cost method is used to obtain the shortest road. Advantage of Vogels approximation method and Minimumcost method yields the best starting basic solution because gives initial solution very near to optimal solution but the solution of Vogels approximation methods is slow because computations take long time. The cost of transportation with Vogel's approximation method and Minimum-cost method is less than north-west corner method. Row-minimum method is used when the purpose of completing the warehouse No. 1 and then the next. Row minimum cost is useful in small number of supply and when the cost of transportation on supply. The cost of transportation is less than North-west corner method. Column minimum method is used when the purpose of completing demand no.1 and then the next. Column minimum cost is useful in small number of demand and when the cost of transportation on demand. The cost of transportation is less than North-west corner method.

7. Transportation Network Data

We present experiments with six months of origin destination (OD) data from a large third-party logistic company. The dataset consists of 98,292 transactions. Each transaction has 11 attributes, described in Table 10. There are 4038 distinct latitude-longitude (LL) pairs in the dataset, with 1797 distinct origins and 3770 distinct destinations (several locations are both). The dataset contains 20, 900 distinct OD pairs (i.e., there are often multiple deliveries between the same origin and destination over the six months). The edges are labeled with the other attributes of the transaction: pickup date, delivery date, distance, hours, weight, and mode.

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 Labeling edges with the exact values would lead to few frequent patterns being detected, since the edge labels are often unique. Instead, we use a binning strategy. Each label (distance, hours, weight) is divided into ranges, giving a few distinct labels for each type (we used seven for gross weight and ten for transit hours in the experiments reported in this paper). As a result, even edges with similar (though not exactly equal) distances, times, and weight are considered to support the same pattern. Since the range of values is quite large, this makes perfect sense. For example, the range for weight is about 500 tons - in this case, two different transactions from the same source to the same destination with weights 49 tons and 52 tons respectively should be considered equal. Binning facilitates this. This dataset is naturally represented as a directed graph by mapping locations to vertices. Each transaction can then be represented as the edge of an OD pair. The dataset does give a fully connected graph. Minimum, maximum, and average out-degrees are 1, 2373, and 12 respectively, and Minimum, maximum, and average in-degrees are 1, 832, and 6. We generate three different graphs from the data, named OD GW,OD TH,OD TD. Each graph has the same set of vertices and edges but different labeling scheme for the edges. OD GW uses GROSS WEIGHT , OD TH uses MOVE TRANSIT HOURS, while OD TD uses TOTAL DISTANCE for edge labeling. Table 10. Transportation Network Data Description Name ID REQ PICKUP DT REQ DELIVERY DT ORIGIN LATITUDE ORIGIN LONGITUDE DEST LATITUDE DEST LONGITUDE TOTAL DISTANCE GROSS WEIGHT MOVE TRANSIT HOURS TRANS MODE Description Unique transaction identifier. Requested date to pick up the load. Requested delivery date. Latitude of source (to nearest 0.1 degree.) Longitude of source (to nearest 0.1 degree.) Latitude of destination (to nearest 0.1 degree.) Longitude of destination (to nearest 0.1 degree.) Road miles between origin and destination. Weight of load. Hours needed to get from origin to destination. Truckload or Less than Truckload.

In the following two sections, we define two valuable patterns (with distinct underline meanings) for decision making in transportation and logistic domains. We propose first cut approach that utilizes the existing graph mining software to discover these patterns. From experimental results, although the existing software are not suitable to mine these patterns and the first cut approach is limited, it does present the need for further research in this area.

7.1 Structurally Similar Routes

One problem we have addressed is identifying self similarity within the transportation network. The goal is to identify structurally similar patterns that occur in many locations. For example, a pattern might be a bow-tie with several small loads converging on a location, large loads to a distant location, and small loads converging on the distant location. Seeing this pattern, a transportation expert could find a way to better utilize resources outside the bounds of traditional optimization methods. Instead of just optimizing truck routes, the company could use multi-modal transportation, placing trailers on rail cars for the large load long distance portion of the pattern, and using the rail-capable trailers as a pool for the short deliveries in the vicinity of the endpoints. This is just a hypothetical example; best utilizing the discovered patterns requires considerable external knowledge. The key is that since the patterns are frequent, innovative transportation approaches that optimize deliveries in those patterns can be applied in many places. Since we are interested only in structural similarity and not particular locations, we assign all vertices the same label. Thus, vertex labeling is a non-factor in finding frequent sub-graphs. The three variants for edge labels; weight, distance, and time; were described earlier.

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7.2 Classification based experiments

We first ran Wekas version of the C4.5 algorithm (J4.8) on the discretized dataset. The J4.8 model was 96% accurate in classifying instances based on the class attribute TRANS MODE {LTL, TL}. The classification tree first splits on the GROSS WEIGHT attribute, which is consistent with the strong association rules generated by the Apriori algorithm in section 7.1. J4.8 was also run on the discretized dataset with the TRANS MODE attribute removed and TOTAL DISTANCE set as the class attribute. The results from this experiment were interesting in the sense that TOTAL DISTANCE and MOVE TRANSIT HOURS were not as highly correlated as either TOTAL DISTANCE and DESTINATION LATITUDE or TOTAL DISTANCE and ORIGIN LATITUDE.

7.3 Clustering based experiments

We used the original undiscretized data set as the training set input to the EM (expectationmaximization) algorithm. The algorithm works by assigning each object to a cluster based on a weight representing the probability of membership. Figure 5 summarizes the results produced by the EM algorithm. The training data were split into nine clusters varying in size from 3 instances in cluster 0 to 19,386 instances in cluster 2.

Figure 5. Clustering statistics for transportation data Figure 6(a) reflects the mean TOTAL DISTANCE within each cluster. Similarly Figure 6(b) reflects the mean TRANSIT HOURS within each cluster. As is evident in the figures, Cluster 0 contains the outliers in this data set. These three shipments have on average, traveled over 3,000 miles in less than 24 hours. Looking at the latitude and longitude of the origin and destination points (as well as the gross weight), one can conclude the shipments are handled as air freight (originating in the Pacific Northwest and delivered to Hawaii).
120 100

3500

total_distance

3000 2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 cluster number

transit_hours

80 60 40 20 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 cluster number

Figure 6(a). Cluster Comparison (total_distance).

Figure 6(b). Cluster comparison (transit_hours)

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Similar analyses can be applied to characterize the remaining clusters. Clusters 2, 5, 7 and 8 can be grouped together and labeled short-haul. Similarly, clusters 1, 3, 4, and 6 can be referred to as longhaul routes. Traditional data mining techniques have produced interesting and meaningful results to summarize our data despite the exclusion of two critical temporal attributes. Further experimentation with traditional mining algorithms is required to explore the potential and limitations of these techniques on temporal transportation network data. In addition, from these data mining results, it is obvious that the insights from the structural characteristics of the data cannot be derived. As a consequence, conventional methods can only produce limited insights on this transportation and logistic dataset.

8. Logistics performance at companies

The productivity indexes of logistics are quantitative measures. Their amounts just partly guarantee the high quality but e.g. the transport speed is an important factor of transport quality. For this reason, its performance matrix is worth being looked at. Table 11. Performance matrix Names Managing (Dispatching) Commitment (staff) Storing Packaging Material handling Vol. loaded in/out(Staff) Packaged pcs (Staff) Handled volume.(Staff) Vol. loaded in/out fac.and year Packaged pcs (facilities and year) Handled vol (fac.and year) Transport (In & Out) Tr.ed volume(Staff)

1.Personnel

2.Company Facilities

Fac.work time (fac.time capacity) Temporary utilization of facilities (%)

Ton(km) vehicle and year Transported vol.(vehicle and year) Run km(Vehicle and Year) Run km(Vehicle and Year) Average transportation distance (km) Utilization of vehicles(%) related to time, load capacity and tkm

3.Space and surface

Utilization of loading surface (%) Utilization of loading space (%)

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 4.Keeping Inventory Av. Inventory (volume, value) Av. storage time (day, hour, minute) Av. inventory efficiency (day, minute) Rotation frequency/year Commitments/year Av. time of comm. (hour, minute) Handled. vol (staff) Handled vol.(Year) Packaged pcs(staff) Packaged pcs(year) No of transports (Year) Av vol.(transport) Av.time(transport)

5.Average total

and

Number of comm. /year Numbers of suppliers/year No of buyers/year Op. time/comm. Return/year

Transported vol. (Year)

8.1Costs of logistics
Along the logistics chain there are seller-buyer relations in every joint point. The seller adds some profit to his costs and offers his service at a price to the buyer. For the buyer the previous price means costs again, he adds more value and this way some profit to the previous service and sells it. This relation is repeated in the whole logistics process till the final buyer (customer).It is not easy to separate logistics costs from the whole production costs for a product which has many phases. For this reason we should take a simple industrial company which gets the raw material immediately from the extractive industry, manufactures just one kind of products. This product will be sold to the customers (not to another industry). Insurance is always included .This scheme is repeated on the whole logistics chain. Table 12. Contracted logistics costs matrix (according to the kinds of costs) Names Managing (Dispatching) Store aging Packaging Mat. handling (own &foreign) Stor.,pack,handl.costs volume,unit,value Transport (own & external)

Costs according to cost places

Managing costs Commitment

Tr.costs commitment Tr.costs volume,tkm,km

Share of total logistics costs

Total man. costs total log. costs

Total stor & inv.costs total log. costs

Tr. costs time& vehicle Total tr.costs Total log. Costs

Share of cost groups in total logistics costs

Personnel costs/total log. Costs Company log. fac. costs/total log. costs Space and surface costs/total log. costs Inventory costs/total log. costs

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 Foreign log. costs/total log. Costs Total log. costs/year Total log. costs/product Total log. costs/total production costs

Costs of total logistics performances

We have to remember the quality costs of logistics. There are here three groups of quality costs: - failure costs (wastes), - control and assessment costs, - prevention costs. High quality performance does not necessarily mean higher costs. The costs of wastes can be rearranged, reduced or eliminated by quality control and prevention. How to save logistics expenditures at macroeconomic level: - reducing the number of logistics activities - optimum selection of logistics technologies, facilities (packaging, load unit, multimodal transport, preferring rail- and waterways etc.) - restructuring industry allocation - modern, comprehensive organisation (logistics centers, just in time etc.) With the specialisation and globalization of production and with ensuring a wide range of choice of consumer's goods, the role of logistics is getting more and more emphasized. The rationalisation of logistics process is essential.

9. RESULTS
OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING
Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is method of implementation in which programs are organized as cooperative collections of objects and each object is an instance of some classes, classes are related to one another via inheritance relationship. [5] In Object-Oriented programming, the data and functions are integrated. An object is like a box containing it data and its functions which can operate on the data.[4] Object-Oriented programming languages Provides great flexibility, clarity and reusability through inheritance. It leads to faster software development, increased quality, easier maintenance, and flexible modifiability. Objects are the basic elements for executing object oriented programs while classes are the basic elements for defining object-oriented programs. If any of these elements is missing, it is not an object-oriented program.[4] object-oriented programming languages such as java, C# and C++.

SOLVING TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM USING JAVA

We need to describe the five methods (mentioned above) of transportation model in LP using the five algorithms and we draw a flow chart for each algorithm. After designing algorithms for the five methods we develop JAVA program for each one. We used Java language to facilitate getting the result and the complex problems which take long time using LP solution. After running these programs we compared between each solution using Java program and LP solution which show that have the same result and compare between different solutions for choosing less value of the objective function. The main ideas from design five Java programs are save time, money, and effort In the example (Sun Ray Transportation) we use the five Java programs to minimize the cost of transportation and determine the number of units transported from source i to destination j. The results are shown as follows. The result of northwest-corner method program by Java, the cost of transportation =$520 The number of units transported from source i to destination j. we transport supply [0] to demand[0] =5 supply [0] to demand[1] =10 supply [1] to demand[1] =5

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 supply [1] to demand[2] =15 supply [1] to demand[3] =5 supply [2] to demand[3] =10 Press any key to continue The result of minimum-cost method program by Java, the cost of transportation =$475 The number of units transported from source i to destination j we transport supply [0] to demand[1] =15 supply [1] to demand[2] =15 supply [1] to demand[3] =10 supply [2] to demand[0] =5 supply [2] to demand[3] =5 Press any key to continue The result of Vogels approximation method program by Java language, the cost of transportation = $475 The number of units transported from source i to destination j we transport supply [0] to demand[1] =15 supply [1] to demand[2] =15 supply [1] to demand[3] =10 supply [2] to demand[0] =5 supply [2] to demand[3] =5 Press any key to continue The result of row minimum method program by Java language, the cost of transportation =$505 The number of units transported from source i to destination j we transport transport supply [0] to demand[1] =15 transport supply [1] to demand[0] =5 transport supply [1] to demand[2] =15 transport supply [1] to demand[3] =5 transport supply [2] to demand[3] =10 Press any key to continue The result of column minimum method program by Java language, the cost of transportation =$475 The number of units transported from source i to destination j we transport supply [0] to demand[1] =15 supply [1] to demand[2] =15 supply [1] to demand[3] =10 supply [2] to demand[0] =5 supply [2] to demand[3] =5 Press any key to continue Minimum-cost method, Vogels approximation method and column minimum methods are having the same objective value are equal to $ 475 and give less value from other methods. We choose less result from these results to reduce the cost of transportation and we transport supply [0] to demand[1] =15 supply [1] to demand[2] =15 supply [1] to demand[3] =10 supply [2] to demand[0] =5 supply [2] to demand[3] =5 The results of the five programs using java are equal to LP solution but the solution using Java language faster and easier than LP solution.

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10. CONCLUSION
Running the five Java programs for solving transportation problem shows that the result of the five Java programs is equal to the result of the LP solution. But the result of the five programs are different. The decision maker may choose the optimal result by the running of the five programs (minimum) and determine the number of units transported from source i to destination j Logistics costs take 18-23% of total production costs (in a wider sense even 40%).For this reason production companies are going to make these activities more effective. Big companies have third partners (forwarders) to make it. A forwarder can comprehend and optimize a longer interval of logistics chain. The share of distribution and production logistics is not right. The border is not sharp. In the case of quality the question is how and not where. The seller and buyer relation can be found in all joint points of the logistics chain.

REFERENCES
[1] K. Bansal, S. Vadhavkar, and A. Gupta, Neural networks based data mining applications for medical inventory problems, International Journal of Agile Manufacturing, 1(2):187200, 1998. [2] K. Bansal, S. Vadhavkar, and A. Gupta, Neural networks based forecasting techniques for inventory control applications, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, 2(1):97102,1998. [3] Liu Xu, Guojun Mao. An Algorithm to Approximately Mine Frequent Closed Itemsets from Data Streams, Acta Electronica Sinica. 2007.5 [4] Peretz Shovel, Functional and object-oriented analysis and design (an integrated methodology), Idea Group Publishing (an imprint of Idea Group Inc.), United States of America, 2006. [5] Grady Booch, Object-oriented Analysis and design, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2 editions, USA, 1993. [6] Hamdy A.Taha, Operations Research: An Introduction, Prentice Hall, 7 editions 5 ,USA,2006. [7] Prem Kumar Gupta, D.S.Hira, Operations Research: An Introduction, S.Chand and Co., Ltd. New Delhi, 1999. [8] Reghu Ramakrishnan, Johannes Gehrke, Database management systems, second Edition, McGrawHill, August 1999. [9] The IEA and transport, Feb. 27 2003.

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International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology, Vol. 2, No.3, 2011 Abraham Paul did his B.Sc. (Computer Science) from the University of Madras, M.C.A at Karunya Institute of Technology (now Karunya University), Coimbatore. He is working with VIT University for the past 10 years. He has one international journal publication and two papers in inter-national conference. His areas of interest are Software Engineering and Data Mining.

Dr. V Saravanan obtained his Bachelors degree in Mathematics from University of Madras during 1996 and Masters Degree in Computer Applications from Bharathiar University during 1999. He has completed his PhD in Computer Science in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bharathiar University during 2004. He specialized on automated and unified data mining using intelligent agents. His research area includes data warehousing and mining, software agents and cognitive systems. He has presented many research papers in National, International conferences and Journals and is also guiding many researchers leading to their PhD degree. He has totally 10 years experience in teaching including 3 years as researcher in Bharathiar University. He is the life member of Computer Society of India, Indian Society for Technical Education, and Indian Association of Research in Computing Sciences and and International Association of Computer Science and Information Technology. He worked as Professor & HOD of the Department of Computer Applications in Karunya University, Coimbatore from 1999-2009. At present, Professor & Director, Department of Computer Applications, Dr. NGP Instituite of Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu.

Dr. P. Ranjit Jeba Thangaiah did his B.Sc (Physics) at P.S.G. College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore, M.C.A at Karunya Institute of Technology (now Karunya University), Coimbatore, M.Phil. at Manaonmanian Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, He did his full time Ph.D. at Bharathiar University. He is working with Karunya University for the past 9 Years. He has published 5 papers in International Journals and 3 papers in International Conferences. His areas of Interest are data mining and machine learning.

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