About

Starting Semester: Spring 2027
Assigned: No
Location: Atlanta / DHL eCommerce DC at Mableton

DHL eCommerce

Client Profile

DHL eCommerce is one of four DHL business units, providing international and domestic e-commerce delivery services in select markets in the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe. The division is focused 100 percent on servicing B2C online merchants, shipping lightweight packages and parcels domestically and internationally.

Project Description

DHL eCommerce distribution centers manage highly variable parcel volumes, fluctuating labor demand, dock utilization challenges, trailer scheduling constraints, and transportation service commitments. Many scheduling and resource allocation decisions are still dependent upon manual planning, local experience, and reactive decision-making.

Drawing upon the optimization, scheduling, resource allocation, workforce balancing, and decision-support methodologies featured throughout the provided students will develop an integrated optimization platform that improves facility and transportation performance while balancing employee workload and labor costs

Uneven labor utilization across associates
Excess overtime expenses
Last-minute staffing adjustments
Dock congestion during peak arrival periods
Trailer dispatch delays
Limited visibility to future capacity constraints
Manual schedule generation that requires significant management effort

The project seeks to develop a decision support platform capable of optimizing labor and transportation resources simultaneously.

Success Metrics
Metric TargetOvertime Reduction
Labor Planning Time Reduction
Dock Utilization Improvement
Trailer Dwell Reduction
Associate Workload Variance Reduction
On-Time Dispatch Improvement

Skills

Must Have

Python

SQL

Data Analytics

Strong Presentation Skills

Statistical Analysis

Process Mapping

Problem Solving

Strongly Preferred

Optimization Modeling (Gurobi, OR-Tools, CPLEX)

Power BI

Simulation (Arena, Simio, FlexSim, AnyLogic)

Machine Learning

AI / Predictive Analytics

Transportation Modeling

Data Access Requirement