SF Express Revolutionizes Its Operations Planning Strategy Using Operations Research

SF Express, China’s leading integrated logistics service provider, is well known for its delivery speed and operational efficiency, and it relies heavily on its integrated logistics network. However, planning its network used to require enormous manual effort from many regional planners. Since 2018, a group of operations research experts has worked to revolutionize this experience-oriented planning procedure into a centralized one that integrates state-of-the-art operations research methods. We identify novel variants of network design and routing problems, each with a larger scale than most of those studied in the literature. We address these challenging problems by combining advanced techniques from the literature, exploiting the problem structures, and drawing inspiration from human experiences. The developed methodologies now guide SF Express’s strategic and operational network planning decisions, such as establishing Asia’s first cargo-focused air hub and daily optimization of vehicle routes. This transformative project has led to financial benefits exceeding $1 billion and reduced millions of tons of carbon dioxide equivalent since 2018.