Doctoral presentation, Dr. Antonia Ilabaca

On Friday, December 19, 2025, Antonia Ilabaca successfully defended her doctoral thesis, entitled “Fleet and Delivery Workers Assignment Problems for Efficient Goods Distribution in Urban Zones”, marking a significant academic milestone in the fields of urban logistics and operations research.

The research was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Germán Paredes-Belmar and evaluated by an outstanding committee composed of Dr. Andrés Bronfman, Dr. Guillermo Latorre-Núñez, Dr. Julio Montecinos, and Dr. Gabriel Gutiérrez-Jarpa, who highlighted the methodological rigor and applied relevance of the work.

The academic community extends its warmest congratulations to Dr. Antonia Ilabaca on this outstanding achievement, as well as to the advisor and the examination committee for their valuable contribution to high-quality research addressing contemporary challenges in urban goods distribution. 🎓👏

New Paper Published: Vehicle Routing and Crew Assignment Problem With the Consideration of Time-Dependent Travel and Service Time

Efficient last-mile delivery in cities is becoming increasingly complex due to traffic congestion, limited parking, and the complexity of delivering packages inside buildings. Our recent study, led by Dr. Antonia Ilabaca, introduces a new decision-support framework that helps logistics companies plan deliveries more efficiently under these real-world conditions.

The study presents a model that simultaneously optimizes delivery routes, vehicle fleets, and delivery crews, explicitly accounting for how travel and service times vary throughout the day. Unlike traditional planning tools, the approach accounts for traffic peaks and delays caused by elevators, restricted access, and in-building deliveries.

To make the method practical for real operations, the researchers developed an advanced optimization algorithm capable of producing high-quality delivery plans in short computing times. Tests show that the method performs better than commonly used optimization techniques, especially for large urban delivery systems.

The approach was validated using real delivery data from Santiago, Chile, demonstrating its potential to reduce total delivery time and improve workforce utilization without increasing fleet size. These results highlight how more innovative planning tools can help cities and companies move toward more efficient, reliable, and sustainable last-mile logistics.

Academic Visit of Professor Daniel Morillo, from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Cali, Colombia

Daniel Morillo-Torres, who holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Universitat Politècnica de València, is currently conducting a research stay at the School of Industrial Engineering of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (EII-PUCV). This visit is supported by the Pacific Alliance Scholarship and the FONDECYT Regular Project No. 1250602, led by Professor Germán Paredes. The purpose of this research stay is to strengthen collaborative ties between Dr. Morillo-Torres and the EII, fostering the development of joint research initiatives.

During his stay, Dr. Morillo-Torres is working closely with Professor Paredes on the preparation of scientific articles on facility location and vehicle routing problems. In recent years, Professor Morillo-Torres has conducted research on the optimization of scheduling, routing, and supply chain problems.

Dr. Morillo-Torres holds a B.Sc. in Industrial Engineering and an M.Sc. in Systems Engineering from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia – Medellín campus. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Sciences, at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali, Colombia. His research interests include operations research, scheduling and planning, metaheuristics, artificial intelligence, multi-objective optimization, robust optimization, and integer programming.