Logistic Price

When we have a network of nodes and want to ship a package from a node to any other one at the optimal (lowest) cost, we need to find out the shortest path between them. Therefore, considering the difficulty of shipping a package between the nodes and that exists only positive weight between nodes, we use the Dijkstra's Algorithm to solve this problem. To calc the shipment of a package with a certain weight and dimensions at a fixed cost, we use the following formula:

shipping cost (EUR) = sqrt(sum(HARD)) * normalized weight (kg)

A normalized package weight is the greater value of an actual weight or a volumetric weight. A volumetric weight is calculated using the following formula rounding up to the nearest 0,5:

Width x Length x Height (cm) / 5000 = Volumetric Weight (kg)

Compile

As it's a Java program we can compile it using your favorite IDE or a command line. This is a simple and easy way to compile the program:

$machine: javac logistic-price/*.java

Afterwards, we'll have the program ready to be used.

Execute

To execute the program we have to follow some steps. First, you have to have a file with a network representation and it has to follow this structure:

SOURCE,TARGET:WEIGHT,TARGET:WEIGHT ...
SOURCE,TARGET:WEIGHT,TARGET:WEIGHT ...

SOURCE​ is the node which has its relations described in the line; TARGET ​ is a node that the ​ SOURCE​ is connected; WEIGHT is the hardness relationship between the ​ SOURCE​ and ​ TARGET​ ; You can see an example below:

ME,Lisa:33,Marco:123,Bruno:55
Lisa,Bruno:3
Rachel,Marco:11

Finally, to execute the program you can use the following command:

$machine: java -Xmx100m logistic.price.main.Snippet file_name origin_name target_name package_info

file_name​ : the name of the file that has the graph represented; origin_name​ : the name of the origin node from where we want to calc the lowest shipping cost; target_name​ : the name of the target node to where we want to calc the lowest shipping cost; package_info​ : the information about the package that we want to ship. Width(cm), Length(cm), Height(cm), Weight(g). This one we have to use the following format:

Width x Length x Height x Weight , for example, 26x10x5x400