Walmart Inc.
PIECE VERSUS MULTI-PIECE CARRIER OPTIMIZATION

Abstract:

Examples provide a system and method for optimizing single piece versus multi-piece shipment for source-carrier combinations. A manager component calculates an estimated shipping cost for all possible combinations of source-carrier associated with delivery of items from the source to a destination. The system iteratively calculates a cost for shipping the item with every combination of carriers and sources as a single piece only packaging, as well as a multi-piece packaging where applicable based on rate cards for the carriers. The combination of source-carrier and boxing method providing the lowest estimated shipping cost in a plurality of calculated shipping costs is selected for order fulfillment. The selected carrier is assigned to deliver the ordered items from the source location to the destination location. A notification can be sent to the user identifying the selected carrier and estimated date of delivery of the items.