Quality Control for Express Items Based on Markov Decision Process

With the development and maturity of the express industry, the compression of the delivery time is gradually approaching the limit. The consumers pay more attention to the quality of the express items. It has become an important issue for the express enterprises. However, due to the privacy policy of the express, express enterprises can only identify the state of internal items through the external packaging generally, and take statistical control after the event. It is difficult to guarantee the quality of the items timely and effectively. This paper draws an analogy between the production process quality inspection in system engineering and quality control of express within the delivery process, considering the states of the express items change dynamically. Aiming at the minimum total cost, a Markov decision process model is established to find out the optimal setting for the quality inspection stations within the delivery process. Thus, enterprises can reduce the damage of expresses, improve customer service level, and enhance the competitiveness.