Challenge

Armored couriers are employed by companies to safely transport valuable items such as cash. In this project, this transfer of cash occurs between retailers and the banks they deal with. The objective of the study was to understand the operational behavior of the armored transport service provider that transports cash between these customers. This was necessary to compare between the current process state and a future state that employs technology, such as the use of RFID tags on cash bags and the use of a robot for cash bags sorting, in order to improve time performance and resource utilization.

Solution

A discrete-events simulation model was built in AnyLogic to convey several processes that occur during the transfer:

• A detailed representation of the processes that occur at the retailer, such as collecting or dropping cash bags, barcode scanning, paperwork, transfer of custody, etc.
• A detailed representation of the processes that occur inside the bank, such as collecting or dropping cash bags, withdrawing cash from ATMs and refilling them with cash, paperwork, transfer of custody, etc.
• A detailed representation of the processes that occur inside the courier branch upon a truck arrival where arriving cash is stored, bags are inspected, tagged, sorted, and prepared for pick-up on the next day
• A detailed representation of the processes that occur inside the courier branch in the morning before the truck takeoff including bag inspection, checking the manifest for each bag, custody transfer, loading of the bags to the truck, etc.
• The movement of the trucks between different locations such as the retailers, banks, and the courier branch.

Moreover, a future state was also incorporated in the model that included the improvements proposed by the client to the system in order to do the comparison between the current and the future state.

Outcome

The model provided a detailed breakdown (raw data) of all needed time durations and resource utilizations in both the current and the future states. This allowed for a complete analysis of the performance of the system in both cases and helped the client in proving his initial assumptions of reduced staffing requirements, improved efficiency, reduced long term cost, and the capability of increasing capacity in the future state.

Project Features

• Industry: Armored Transport & IOT
• Model: Discrete-Events
• Duration: 1 Month

You can read more on how cash armored transport logistics work here:
https://noorjax.com/2023/10/30/movement-of-cash-by-armored-transport/