Extensions of the Petal Method for Vehicle Routeing

The petal method for vehicle routeing imposes special structure on the form of a feasible route. In this paper we show that by extending the definition of a petal route, more general forms of vehicle route can be generated without invalidating the important underlying property that optimal petal solutions can be produced very easily. It will also be shown that the optimal generalized petal solution can be produced efficiently by multiple applications of a shortest path algorithm.     

A Heuristic for Vehicle Routeing and Depot Staffing

This paper discusses the approach taken in solving a specific depot staffing and routeing problem. The problem differs from the normal routeing exercise in that the route passes through a number of outlets where monetary collections are made. Owing to the ever increasing risks of carrying money there is a requirement for the money to be deposited at banks along the route. Consequently, the more traditional routeing and scheduling methodologies and software are not easily applied to the problem. This paper details the approach used and highlights some of the good points and the pitfalls in the proposed solution.     

A Repeated Matching Heuristic for the Vehicle Routeing Problem

A new heuristic for the vehicle routeing problem which makes use of repeated matching is described. The numerical results are comparable to or better than the best published for most of the 14 benchmark problems commonly used to evaluate VRP heuristics.     

Complexity Results for Flow-Shop and Open-Shop Scheduling Problems with Transportation Delays

We consider shop problems with transportation delays where not only the jobs on the machines have to be scheduled, but also transportation of the jobs between the machines has to be taken into account. Jobs consisting of a given number of operations have to be processed on machines in such a way that each machine processes at most one operation at a time and a job is not processed by more than one machine simultaneously. Transportation delays occur if a job changes from one machine to another. The objective is to find a feasible schedule which minimizes some objective function. A survey of known complexity results for flow-shop and open-shop environments is given and some new complexity results are derived.     

Combined Sea and Land Transportation

An important problem today in the field of transportation is the standardization of the cargo, e.g. by using containers, and the design of the handling and transportation equipment for the specific cargo to be transported.The paper presents a method for determining the transportation system with emphasis on sea transport. Thus the cargo is to be transported by sea from the factory to customers spread over a large region, e.g. Europe. The problem is to select the ports of call, the quantities to be delivered at the ports, as well as the size and type of vessel.This problem resembles the warehouse location problem (the location of ports) but requires in addition the determination of ship size, type of ship and whether one or more ports should be called at on each journey with a single ship. A discussion is also presented as to the possibility of considering randomness in the system with respect to customer demand and weather conditions.The method used resembles that suggested by Baumol and Wolfe for the ware-house location problem. A concave function of the quantities delivered at each port is derived and this is then shown to converge to a local optimum.An example is solved to illustrate the method.     

An Improved Petal Heuristic for the Vehicle Routeing Problem

Solutions produced by the first generation of heuristics for the vehicle routeing problem are often far from optimal. Recent adaptations of local search improvement heuristics, like tabu search, produce much better solutions but require increased computing time. However there are situations where good solutions must be obtained quickly. The algorithm proposed in this paper yields solutions almost as good as those produced by tabu search adaptations, but at only a small fraction of their computing time. This heuristic can be seen as an improved version of the original petal heuristic. On 14 benchmark test problems, the proposed heuristic yields solutions whose values lie on average within 2.38% of that of the best known solutions.     

两种运输方式下的船只优化排序模型及算法

本文讨论的是在两种不同容量的船只和两条不同运输路线的情况下的库存与运输联合优化排序问题.传统的经济批量订货问题里每次定购成本固定不变,而我们的问题里面定购成本是阶跃式的,与使用的船数相关.以往运输网络优化的论文都只考虑一种容量的运输工具,没有考虑不同容量的运输工具.本文结合这两方面做了进一步的研究,并根据实际应用背景建立了数学模型,讨论最优解的性质,由最优解性质给出了复杂度为O(N4) 的多项式算法.     

邮政运输网络中的邮路规划和邮车调度研究

邮政运输网络是邮政企业运营的重要保障,而邮路规划和邮车调度设计是决定邮政运输网络效率的关键因素,问题1的邮路规划问题归结为带返程货的车辆路由问题,该问题是NP-难的,采用改进蚁群算法,通过对单环路旅行商问题进行断环分析,将运行线路的好坏反馈给蚁群算法的目标函数,求取最终的优化路径.第二问邮路规划扩展到了全区,采用有优先级的分县优化途径寻求最佳邮路.最后,给出模型的评价及改进方向.     

邮政运输网络中的邮路规划和邮车调度

根据不同情况的要求,采用多种算法来确定邮路规划.1)按照邮车不超载的要求,提出改进型贪心算法,得到符合条件的邮路规划,并结合实际,进一步提出改进方案.2)依据最小生成树理论,提出对各支局进行初步分组方法.同时,基于Floyd算法,提出了改进型TSP算法,并建立求解最小路径的模型,进而得到最经济的邮路规划.3)根据最佳Hamilton圈的理论,判断支局应归人的邮路,从而达到减少成本的目的.4)利用最短路覆盖中心算法,确定最合适的县局地址,使邮路总成本最小化.     

智能制造环境下的备件生产与运输协同调度问题研究

智能制造和即时配送环境下的备件生产与运输协同调度问题是目前国内研究的一大热点,这是因为备件供应链响应速度已成为当前备件制造企业赢得客户的关键因素。为了提高客户满意度,尽可能缩短从客户下达定制化生产订单到订单配送完成的时间,本文建立了以所有客户总等待时间最短为目标的混合整数规划模型和集合覆盖模型,推导了最优解性质,并设计改进的分支定价算法求得最优解。通过将小规模算例结果与CPLEX进行对比,验证了模型和算法的有效性。多组算例测试结果表明,所提出的模型和算法可以有效提升智能制造环境下的备件供应链运作效率。     

Simple Heuristics for the Vehicle Routeing Problem with Soft Time Windows

We describe three simple heuristics for the vehicle routeing problem with customer time windows that can be violated by paying appropriate penalties. The customer demands are known, and a homogeneous fleet of vehicles stationed at a single depot is considered. The penalty payable to a customer is assumed to be a linear function of the amount of time window violation. Upper limits are imposed on both the penalty payable and the waiting time allowed at any customer. At each customer in a route, the PC-based heuristics simultaneously determine the actual time to begin service, and the next customer to serve. To achieve this, each heuristic uses different measures to compare the cost of waiting and penalty payable, with the benefit obtained by leaving immediately for the next customer. Computational results on a set of benchmark problems show that the procedure is efficient and enables significant reduction in the number of vehicles required and/or the total route distances while controlling both customer penalties and waiting times.     

带运输时间和自动机的流水作业排序问题的复杂性

研究目标函数为使最大完工时间达到最小的三台机器情况下的流水作业排序问题, 同一工件在某台机器上完工后和在下一台机器上开始加工这段时间内, 存在称为运输时间的时间间隔, 所有的运输工作均由自动机来完成, 自动机在同一时间内最多运输一个工件, 文章研究该问题及其特殊情况下的复杂性.     

邮政运输网络中的邮路规划和邮车调度

本题是一道VRP问题,它涉及到最短路线、最小费用等条件下的优化问题.问题一中,我们论证出最少需要3辆邮车才能满足要求.然后对C1区域根据装载量、时间要求遍历出所有的可行路线,最后选出因空车率而减小的收入最小的邮路,其减少的收入为49.35元.问题二中,将整个区域进行划分,在每个小区域应用分枝定界法求出运行成本的路线.再通过对区域的微调讨论出使邮车数目更小的、更节省运行成本的邮路规划方案.问题三中,由于我们将Z55,Z57由县局X1负责运送,Z27由县局X2负责运送.问题四是一个选址问题.我们借助于中心点算法,考虑各支局在本县区域内的位置,并结合与地市局的距离,提出了相应的选址方案.     

带运输时间和自动机的法流水作业排序问题的复杂性

研究目标函数为使最大完工时间达到最小的三台机器情况下的流水作业排序问题,同一工件在某台机器上完工后和在下一台机器上开始加工这段时间内,存在称为运输时间的时间间隔,所有的运输工作均由自动机来完成,自动机在同一时间内最多运输一个工件,文章研究该问题及其特殊情况下的复杂性.     

Flowshop Scheduling of Robotic Cells with Job-dependent Transportation and Set-up Effects

A flexible manufacturing cell consisting of two machining centres, several automated storage/retrieval stations, and a mobile transporting robot is considered. The problem is to schedule jobs on machines so as to minimize the makespan, with the effects of transportation and set-ups to be taken into account. The problem is studied with the aid of a graph model, and an exact algorithm of cubic complexity is derived based on the Gilmore–Gomory algorithm for the travelling salesman problem.     

A Branch and Bound Algorithm for a Class of Asymmetrical Vehicle Routeing Problems

This paper describes a branch and bound algorithm for a general class of asymmetrical vehicle routeing problems. Vehicle routes start and end at a central depot. Visits are made to nodes grouped into clusters: every cluster must receive a minimum number of visits. But not all nodes must be visited: there are specified nodes and non-specified nodes. Vehicle routes are also constrained by capacity and distance restrictions. The problem is formulated as an integer linear program. It is then solved by a branch and bound algorithm which exploits the unimodular structure of the subproblems. Computational results are reported.     

邮政运输中邮路的规划和邮车调度问题的研究

以邮政运输网络中运输效益最优为目标,建立了分步规划的图论模型.运用Floyd算法、Kruskal算法对模型进行分步求解并逐步优化,通过Matlab、Lingo、SPSS软件求解,提出三种优化邮路、降低邮车调度成本的方法.模型对解决邮路问题、单旅行商、多旅行商等相关问题具有普遍适用性,可以推广到点数更多TSP的问题.     

Efficient Scheduling Rules in a Combined Make-to-Stock and Make-to-Order Manufacturing System

In this paper, we consider a mixed MTS/MTO policy to manage a single manufacturing facility producing two classes of end-products. A few end-products have high volume demands, whereas a fairly large number of end-products have low volume demands. In this situation, it is appealing to try to produce the high volume products according to an MTS policy and the low volume products according to an MTO policy. The purpose of this paper is to analyze and compare the impact of the choice of the scheduling policy on the overall performance of the system. We consider two policies: the classical FIFO policy and a priority policy (PR). The PR policy gives priority to production orders corresponding to low volume products over production orders corresponding to high volume products. Under some simple stochastic modeling assumptions, we develop analytical/numerical solutions to optimise each system. We then provide insights regarding this issue with the help of numerical examples. It appears that for some range of parameters, the PR rule can outperform the FIFO rule in the sense that, to achieve the same service level constraint, the corresponding cost under the PR rule is much lower. This situation is encountered when the low volume products can be managed with an MTO policy under the PR scheduling rule, while they have to be managed according to an MTS policy under the FIFO scheduling rule. We also derive some theoretical properties that support our empirical findings.     

The Impact of a Decision-Support System for Vehicle Routeing in a Foodservice Supply Situation

Efficient vehicle routeing is critical to the competitive position of firms in many industries. The foodservice industry encounters complex and constantly changing routeing problems in which time is a critical factor. With the cooperation and support of management and staff of Kraft Inc., we implemented an heuristic-based decision-support system, which utilizes computer-graphic pictures of routes in a large foodservice distribution region of Kraft Inc.The system provides the route scheduler with a tool to enable the rapid evaluation of computer-proposed solutions and to easily modify them. In tests conducted by Kraft personnel, system users found potential variable cost savings of 10.7% on 10 actual delivery problems of up to 223 stops. A potential for reductions in fixed costs was also indicated. The system allows the scheduler great flexibility in dealing with unpredictable factors and also aids management in strategic planning for distribution. It is currently in day-to-day use at Kraft.