Master Thesis

Master thesis for students in Technology, Mathematics, or nearby fields. 

About the company

Ongoing is a successful and growing software company developing a Software as a Service solution for logistics-intensive companies. The service contributes to millions of consumers and businesses receiving what they need with a great customer experience. The software service has been developed and improved over many years with close collaboration with our customers and partners. Ongoing strives every day to simplify and connect a complex world of Logistics. The company is the market leader in its niche in the Nordic countries and has built the largest software ecosystem in the market. Join the company in its expansion throughout the world.

Ongoing has its office just outside of Chalmers Johanneberg campus.

Qualifications

It is expected that you have knowledge and interest in IT and Programming. Great if you also like to interact with customers and find business in general interesting. More importantly you should be excited to getting to know an entrepreneurial-driven software company where curiosity, responsibility and flexibility is an important part of future success. At least professional working proficiency in a Scandinavian language and English are required. Our employees have backgrounds from all engineering specializations and almost all have a master's degree in Technology as well as other qualifications. The company's aim of the thesis project is to hire full-time employees.

Casper Opperud started his career at Ongoing Warehouse by writing a Master thesis in cooperation with the company.

Subject

There are plenty of opportunities to write a thesis in the intersection between Technology and Logistics. Previous theses have been within large-scale optimization, eCommerce picking and software testing. If you have any specific subjects you want to explore, we are happy to help you find mutual interests. Our engineers may also have ideas that you can explore. Here are however some pitches that you might consider.

Suggest packaging with machine learning

None might have missed that eCommerce products are shipped in too big packages with too much padding. This is a large problem which leads to low resource efficiency of packaging material, transports, and overfull recycling station. At Ongoing, you can make a great impact for millions of consumers and thousands of companies to help them all to lower their environmental footprint. Using for example machine learning it is possible to suggest packages based on the inputted information about the ordered products. One approach could be using a genetic algorithm (Genetic algorithm - Wikipedia). Together we explore possible paths with the aim of helping our customers.

Using Artificial intelligence to suggest warehouse location

Most of the work in a warehouse is spent on the picking process. In the picking process most of the time is spent moving from one picking location to another. There are multiple techniques for allotting a location to a product. One common technique which is used by our customers is ABC Analysis (Wikipedia). Together with you we would like to explore AI techniques for helping our customers to pick more efficiently. One suggestion is using association rule learning (Association rule learning - Wikipedia).

Order batching problem

In the processing of orders, several picking strategies can be used (Order processing - Wikipedia). One common strategy in e-commerce is the batch picking method. During batch picking the picker moves through the warehouse one time collecting products for multiple orders. The strategy reduces the time used to pick each individual order but brings with it the challenge of distributing the individual orders into an optimal set of batches. Using methods for large-scale optimization such as Dantzig-Wolfe decomposition (Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition - Wikipedia) it is possible to improve the batching.

Previous work

Ongoing has a short but successful history of offering Master Thesis. Most projects have led to employment after the thesis was finalized.

Not all theses are published. Here we list examples of published work.

• Chalmers Open Digital Repository: Walk less, pick more: choosing optimal batches of orders in a warehouse
• Chalmers Open Digital Repository: Enhancing Association Rule Mining for Solving the Storage Location Assignment Problem
• Chalmers Open Digital Repository: Batch Picking in Warehouse Logistics: Trading Optimality for Feasibility
• Chalmers Open Digital Repository: Optimizing Box Sizes for Shipping in E-Commerce - A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming and a Genetic Algorithm Approach

Writing your thesis together with Ongoing gives you access to our office space with your own room. Coffee, fruit, sandwiches, lunch and compensation are included.

Formalities

At Ongoing you will be guided by a supervisor which recently finalized his/her own thesis. Ongoing assists with computer and office space in its Johanneberg, Gothenburg office. We also offer complementary fruit, coffee/tea and lunch (3 times a week). The office is located at Chalmers' campus which makes it easy to attend meeting with supervisor and other compulsory events. As a compensation, 30 000 SEK is paid out to each student. The sum is paid out when the University has approved the thesis.

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