ParcFinder Proposal

HOME

PROJECT DETAILS

POSTER

APPLICATION

RESEARCH PAPER

Project Background

Flowchart of Traditional SingPost Delivery Service in E-Commerce

Issues and Problems

With the expansion of E-Commerce in Singapore, there is a growing demand for the provision of effective logistical services to facilitate the delivery and receiving of goods and services to consumers.

As we analysed the entire customer experience journey in the e-commerce industry, we realised that there is a gap in the service delivery process in the event of a missed delivery. A study by the NUS Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific shows that as of 2017, the delivery failure rates in Singapore hover at more than 15%.

Traditionally, customers who missed a delivery from their logistics providers are redirected either to the post office to collect their parcels. They could also be required to make a call to their logistics providers and rescheduling for a redelivery, and at times required to pay an additional fee for the services. As for the logistics providers, carrying out redeliveries incurs additional operational costs in terms of man-hours and resources.

Motivation

Project Aim

Our team has explored the Self-Collection Points as a viable solution in addressing the issue of missed deliveries. We recognise the importance for Logistic Companies to be able to determine the location of their self-collection points, in order to maximise coverage as well as improving their last-mile delivery service experience for their customers.

Proposed Solution

POPStation, a 24/7 self-collection point from SingPost

Through the conceptualisation of our application - ParcFinder, we provide users with the tools to visualise the geographical accessibility and generate spatial analysis reports of their existing self-collection points. We hope to provide the necessary insights for our users in their decision-making process in the location of their self-collection points.

Our project will provide an application that will present to users the following insights and analyses:

The number of residential locations that each self-collection point caters to within a specified buffer distance

The accessibility scores of the respective self-collection points

The heatmaps to visualise hotspots of self-collection points and determining areas that are underserved

Approach - GIS and Accessibility Models Used

ParcFinder is an application that uses various GIS and Accessibility Models and give the user different levels of understanding the geographical accessibility of the self-collection points. These models are as follows, based on the level of analysis and insights each method brings:

Level 1: Catchment Area Buffer Analysis

Level 2: Hansen Potential Accessibility Model

Level 3: Kernel Density Estimation

Level 4: Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method (For Future Works)

Data Source

S/N	Title	Format	Website Link / Sources
1	Master Plan 2014 Planning Area	SHP	https://data.gov.sg/dataset/master-plan-2014-planning-area-boundary-web
2	SingPost Post Office	Unformatted	https://www.singpost.com/list-of-post-offices
3	SingPost POPStation	Unformatted	https://www.mypopstation.com/locations
4	EzBuy	Unformatted	https://ezbuy.sg/Help/QuickGuide#Delivery
6	Residential Location	csv	Public Housing: https://www.ema.gov.sg/statistic.aspx?sta_sid=20150617kEhn53Jk6sDQ Private Housing: https://www.ema.gov.sg/statistic.aspx?sta_sid=20150209DnSuIwVsNHBY

Project Proposal

Project Milestones

Project Storyboard

Project Task Allocation

S/N	Task	Done by	Week	Dates	Status
1	Topic Brainstorming	All	2 & 3	15 Jan - 26 Jan	Completed ✔
2	Drafting and refinement of Project Proposal	All	2 & 3	15 Jan - 26 Jan	Completed ✔
3	Consultation with Prof Kam for Feedback on Proposal	All	3	22 Jan - 26 Jan	Completed ✔
4	Finalisation of Project Topic and Focus	All	3	26 Jan - 28 Jan	Completed ✔
5	Compilation and Cleaning of Datasets (SingPost Post Office, POPStation, EzBuy)	Shu Yan & Zhi Hui	4 - 6	29 Jan -18 Feb	Completed ✔
6	Creation of Wiki Page	Aaron & Shu Yan	5 - 6	5 Feb - 14 Feb	Completed ✔
7	Generation of Storyboard	Aaron	5	5 Feb - 9 Feb	Completed ✔
8	Inddependent learning of R and R Shiny on DataCamp	All	6 - 9	12 Feb - 9 March	Completed ✔
9	Research on Tools for Data Conversion	Shu Yan & Zhi Hui	6 - 7	12 Feb - 19 Feb	Completed ✔
10	Wiki Content Update	Aaron	7	19 Feb - 23 Feb	Completed ✔
11	Preparation for Interim Presentation	Aaron and Shu Yan	7 - 8	19 Feb - 2 Mar	Completed ✔
12	Consolidation and complete conversion of data into SHP File	Shu Yan and Zhi Hui	8	26 Feb - 4 March	Completed ✔
13	Interim Presentation with Prof Kam	All	9	6 Mar	Completed ✔
14	Map and Interface Development Buffer Analysis: Shu Yan Hansen Analysis: Zhi Hui KDE: Aaron and Shu Yan Upload Dataset: Aaron	All	9-13	5 Mar - 6 Apr	Completed ✔
15	Debugging and Analysis of Results	All	10-14	12 Mar - 10 Apr	Completed ✔
16	Creating and Submission of Townhall Poster	Aaron	13	2 Apr - 6 Apr Submission: 9 Apr	Completed ✔
17	Uploading of App on Shinyapps.io	Zhi Hui	13 - 14	2 Apr - 15 Apr	Completed ✔
18	Updating of Project Wiki Page	Aaron	13 - 14	2 Apr - 15 Apr	In Progress
19	Townhall Poster Presentation @ SLA	All	14	11 Apr	In Progress
20	Finalizing Wiki & Research Paper	All	14	12 Apr - 15 Apr	In Progress

Case Study

Case Study 1: Singapore Post POPStation

Case Study 2: EzBuy, bluPort and NinjaCollect

ParcFinder Application

Application Architecture

Application Overview

Application Guide

Challenges and Limitations

Data Cleaning and Transformation

• Data retrieved not available in KML/SHP/XML format
  • Team effort to convert to SHP format
  • Documentation to keep track of changes.
• Data (longitude and latitude) not provided
  • Write script to transform postal codes
  • For postal codes that wasn't able to transform using the script, manually retrieve longitude and latitude from Google Map

Meet the ParcFinder Team

Aaron Ching Kwun Hin

Chien Shu Yan

Lee Zhi Hui

Comments

Please insert your comments here:

No.	Name	Date	Comments
1.	Insert your Name here	Insert Date here	Insert Comment here
2.	Insert your Name here	Insert Date here	Insert Comment here
3.	Insert your Name here	Insert Date here	Insert Comment here