An exact algorithm for solving a capacitated location-routing problem

In location-routing problems, the objective is to locate one or many depots within a set of sites (representing customer locations or cities) and to construct delivery routes from the selected depot or depots to the remaining sites at least system cost. The objective function is the sum of depot operating costs, vehicle acquisition costs and routing costs. This paper considers one such problem in which a weight is assigned to each site and where sites are to be visited by vehicles having a given capacity. The solution must be such that the sum of the weights of sites visited on any given route does not exceed the capacity of the visiting vehicle. The formulation of an integer linear program for this problem involves degree constraints, generalized subtour elimination constraints, and chain barring constraints. An exact algorithm, using initial relaxation of most of the problem constraints, is presented which is capable of solving problems with up to twenty sites within a reasonable number of iterations.     

An approximation algorithm for the pickup and delivery vehicle routing problem on trees

This paper presents an approximation algorithm for a vehicle routing problem on a tree-shaped network with a single depot where there are two types of demands, pickup demand and delivery demand. Customers are located on nodes of the tree, and each customer has a positive demand of pickup and/or delivery.Demands of customers are served by a fleet of identical vehicles with unit capacity. Each vehicle can serve pickup and delivery demands. It is assumed that the demand of a customer is splittable, i.e., it can be served by more than one vehicle. The problem we are concerned with in this paper asks to find a set of tours of the vehicles with minimum total lengths. In each tour, a vehicle begins at the depot with certain amount of goods for delivery, visits a subset of the customers in order to deliver and pick up goods and returns to the depot. At any time during the tour, a vehicle must always satisfy the capacity constraint, i.e., at any time the sum of goods to be delivered and that of goods that have been picked up is not allowed to exceed the vehicle capacity. We propose a 2-approximation algorithm for the problem.     

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.     

具有可变配送费用和固定配送时刻的单机排序问题

研究了单机环境下生产与配送的协同排序问题.有多个工件需要在一台机器上进行加工,加工完的工件需要分批配送到一个客户.每批工件只能在固定的几个配送时刻出发,不同的配送时刻对应着不同的配送费用.我们的目标是找到生产与配送的协同排序,极小化排序的时间费用与配送费用的加权和.研究了排序理论中主要的四个目标函数,构建了单机情况下的具体模型,分析了问题的复杂性,对于配送费用单调非增的情况给出了它们的最优算法.     

Multiple depot ring star problem: a polyhedral study and an exact algorithm

The multiple depot ring-star problem (MDRSP) is an important combinatorial optimization problem that arises in optical fiber network design and in applications that collect data using stationary sensing devices and autonomous vehicles. Given the locations of a set of customers and a set of depots, the goal is to (i) find a set of simple cycles such that each cycle (ring) passes through a subset of customers and exactly one depot, (ii) assign each non-visited customer to a visited customer or a depot, and (iii) minimize the sum of the routing costs, i.e., the cost of the cycles and the assignment costs. We present a mixed integer linear programming formulation for the MDRSP and propose valid inequalities to strengthen the linear programming relaxation. Furthermore, we present a polyhedral analysis and derive facet-inducing results for the MDRSP. All these results are then used to develop a branch-and-cut algorithm to obtain optimal solutions to the MDRSP. The performance of the branch-and-cut algorithm is evaluated through extensive computational experiments on several classes of test instances.     

Scheduling trucks in local depots for door-to-door delivery services

A scheduling method is suggested for trucks delivering and picking up freight between branch offices and a regional depot in door-to-door delivery services. As the objective functions, different levels of customer service resulting from different timing of deliveries and pickups to/from branch offices are considered as well as the travel cost of trucks. Useful properties of the optimal timing of deliveries and pickups are derived to reduce the size of the search space significantly. Numerical experiments were conducted to evaluate various algorithms to solve the problem.     

A greedy look-ahead heuristic for the vehicle routing problem with time windows

In this paper we consider the problem of physically distributing finished goods from a central facility to geographically dispersed customers, which pose daily demands for items produced in the facility and act as sales points for consumers. The management of the facility is responsible for satisfying all demand, and promises deliveries to the customers within fixed time intervals that represent the earliest and latest times during the day that a delivery can take place. We formulate a comprehensive mathematical model to capture all aspects of the problem, and incorporate in the model all critical practical concerns such as vehicle capacity, delivery time intervals and all relevant costs. The model, which is a case of the vehicle routing problem with time windows, is solved using a new heuristic technique. Our solution method, which is based upon Atkinson's greedy look-ahead heuristic, enhances traditional vehicle routing approaches, and provides surprisingly good performance results with respect to a set of standard test problems from the literature. The approach is used to determine the vehicle fleet size and the daily route of each vehicle in an industrial example from the food industry. This actual problem, with approximately two thousand customers, is presented and solved by our heuristic, using an interface to a Geographical Information System to determine inter-customer and depot–customer distances. The results indicate that the method is well suited for determining the required number of vehicles and the delivery schedules on a daily basis, in real life applications.     

交互视角下的客户关系管理时变决策模型研究

从企业和客户交互视角出发，提出关系承诺是客户关系持续的本质，它的驱动因素为信任、认知价值传递、关系管理努力和机会主义倾向。基于此，论文利用动态优化控制理论，研究了客户关系持续管理决策问题，建立了一种在动态环境中客户关系持续管理的时变模型，讨论了模型建立的依据，给出了决策模型的最优结果以及在客户关系管理实践中的意义。     

An exact algorithm for minimizing routing and operating costs in depot location

The problem of locating a single depot among n points is considered. The objective is to minimize the sum of depot operating cost and routing cost. The best depot location is found by means of an exact algorithm that determines simultaneously both the best depot location and the associated optimal delivery routes. A global integer programming formulation of the problem is given; the model is solved by relaxing most of its constraints and by introducing them only when they are violated.     

A goal programming approach to vehicle routing problems with soft time windows

The classical vehicle routing problem involves designing a set of routes for a fleet of vehicles based at one central depot that is required to serve a number of geographically dispersed customers, while minimizing the total travel distance or the total distribution cost. Each route originates and terminates at the central depot and customers demands are known. In many practical distribution problems, besides a hard time window associated with each customer, defining a time interval in which the customer should be served, managers establish multiple objectives to be considered, like avoiding underutilization of labor and vehicle capacity, while meeting the preferences of customers regarding the time of the day in which they would like to be served (soft time windows). This work investigates the use of goal programming to model these problems. To solve the model, an enumeration-followed-by-optimization approach is proposed which first computes feasible routes and then selects the set of best ones. Computational results show that this approach is adequate for medium-sized delivery problems.     

Finite and infinite-horizon single vehicle routing problems with a predefined customer sequence and pickup and delivery

We consider the problem of finding the optimal routing of a single vehicle that starts its route from a depot and picks up from and delivers K different products to N customers that are served according to a predefined customer sequence. The vehicle is allowed during its route to return to the depot to unload returned products and restock with new products. The items of all products are of the same size. For each customer the demands for the products that are delivered by the vehicle and the quantity of the products that is returned to the vehicle are discrete random variables with known joint distribution. Under a suitable cost structure, it is shown that the optimal policy that serves all customers has a specific threshold-type structure. We also study a corresponding infinite-time horizon problem in which the service of the customers is not completed when the last customer has been serviced but it continues indefinitely with the same customer order. For each customer, the joint distribution of the quantities that are delivered and the quantity that is picked up is the same at each cycle. The discounted-cost optimal policy and the average-cost optimal policy have the same structure as the optimal policy in the finite-horizon problem. Numerical results are given that illustrate the structural results.     

A new subtour elimination constraint for the vehicle routing problem

Vehicle Routing Problems (VRP) are concerned with the delivery of a single commodity from a centralized depot to a number of specified customer locations with known demands. In this paper we consider the VRP characterized by: fixed or variable number of vehicles, common vehicle capacity, distance restrictions, and minimization of total distance travelled by all vehicles as the objective. We develop an exact algorithm based on a new subtour elimination constraint. The algorithm is implemented using the CPLEX package for solving the relaxed subproblems. Computational results on 1590 simulated problems and 10 literature problems (without distance restrictions) are reported and a comparative analysis is carried out.     

Planning and consolidating shipments from a warehouse

A typical warehouse or distribution centre ships material to various customer locations across the country, using various modes of transportation. Each mode has different constraints on size of shipment, different cost structures and different transportation times. Typically, for a given warehouse there are certain customer locations that receive frequent shipments of material. It is often possible, therefore, for the warehouse to consolidate different orders for the same customer location into a single shipment. The transportation mode and the day of shipment must be chosen such that the consolidated shipment meets the size constraints and arrives within an agreed-upon ‘delivery window’. In preparing a warehouse distribution plan, a planner seeks to achieve transportation economies of scale (by consolidating two or more orders into fewer shipments) while levelling the workload on warehouse resources and ensuring that material arrives at a customer location during the acceptable delivery window.The problem of deciding what shipments to make daily can be formulated as a set partitioning problem with side constraints. This paper describes a heuristic solution approach for this problem. Computational experiments using actual warehouse select activity indicate that, for moderate-size problems, the heuristic produces solutions with transportation costs that are within a few percent of optimal. Larger problems found in practice are generally too large to be solved by optimal algorithms; the heuristic easily handles such problems. The heuristic has been integrated into the transportation planning system of a leading distributor of telecommunications products.     

A truck and drones model for last-mile delivery: A mathematical model and heuristic approach

We present a mathematical formulation and a heuristic solution approach for the optimal planning of delivery routes in a multi-modal system combining truck and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operations. In this system, truck and UAV operations are synchronized, i.e., one or more UAVs travel on a truck, which serves as a mobile depot. Deliveries can be made by both UAVs and the truck. While the truck follows a multi-stop route, each UAV delivers a single shipment per dispatch. The presented optimization model minimizes the waiting time of customers in the system. The model determines the optimal allocation of customers to truck and UAVs, the optimal route sequence of the truck, and the optimal launch and reconvene locations of the UAVs along the truck route. We formulate the problem as a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model and conduct a bound analysis to gauge the maximum potential of the proposed system to reduce customer waiting time compared to a traditional truck-only delivery system. To be able to solve real-world problem size instances, we propose an efficient Truck and Drone Routing Algorithm (TDRA). The solution quality and computational performance of the mathematical model and the TDRA are compared together and with the truck-only model based on a variety of problem instances. Further, we apply the TDRA to a real-world case study for e-commerce delivery in São Paulo, Brazil. Our numerical results suggest significant reductions in customer waiting time to be gained from the proposed multi-modal delivery model.     

The least element property of center location on tree networks with applications to distance and precedence constrained problems

In the classicalp-center location model on a network there is a set of customers, and the primary objective is to selectp service centers that will minimize the maximum distance of a customer to a closest center. Suppose that thep centers receive their supplies from an existing central depot on the network, e.g. a warehouse. Thus, a secondary objective is to locate the centers that optimize the primary objective as close as possible to the central depot. We consider tree networks and twop-center models. We show that the set of optimal solutions to the primary objective has a semilattice structure with respect to some natural ordering. Using this property we prove that there is ap-center solution to the primary objective that simultaneously minimizes every secondary objective function which is monotone nondecreasing in the distances of thep centers from the existing central depot.Restricting the location models to a rooted path network (real line) we prove that the above results hold for the respective classicalp-median problems as well.     

考虑模糊时间和成熟度的跨区域鲜果电商配送模型研究

基于现实配送过程中配送时间存在着不确定性,通过配送时间模糊化处理构建出跨区域鲜果电商配送模糊网络流模型,进而根据实际配送时间与期望配送时间的偏离建立顾客满意度函数,然后构建由满意度降低引起的惩罚成本函数,并根据鲜果成熟度变化特性建立带有模糊时间和成熟度的跨区域鲜果电商配送最小成本路线优化模型。在求解过程中利用三种去模糊化方法(重心法、积分法和α-cut法)对模糊时间进行处理,并结合现有的整数规划算法对模型进行求解,得出最佳配送路线并进行对比分析。结果表明：(1)根据鲜果成熟度水平选择适当的配送路线可以有效降低配送成本,保证鲜果品质;(2)在去模糊化方面α-cut法比重心法和积分法所得结果更具有一般性。     

Lead time and response time in a pull production control system

In the late 80s, most manufacturers have shifted their manufacturing strategies from cost and quality to speed. This paper focuses on two performance measures of speed: manufacturing lead time and response time. Manufacturing lead time is the sum of the processing time to convert raw material to finished goods and the waiting time at the buffers. Response time is the time between the customer places an order and the customer receives the order. In this paper we develop a queueing model of a pull-based production control system for a single-stage facility. The intent of the model is two-fold. First, we highlight the trade-off between manufacturing lead time and response time. Second, we develop an optimization model to determine an optimal control system that guarantees certain delivery performance (in terms of response time).     

Large scale stochastic inventory routing problems with?split delivery and service level constraints

A stochastic inventory routing problem (SIRP) is typically the combination of stochastic inventory control problems and NP-hard vehicle routing problems, which determines delivery volumes to the customers that the depot serves in each period, and vehicle routes to deliver the volumes. This paper aims to solve a large scale multi-period SIRP with split delivery (SIRPSD) where a customer??s delivery in each period can be split and satisfied by multiple vehicle routes if necessary. This paper considers SIRPSD under the multi-criteria of the total inventory and transportation costs, and the service levels of customers. The total inventory and transportation cost is considered as the objective of the problem to minimize, while the service levels of the warehouses and the customers are satisfied by some imposed constraints and can be adjusted according to practical requests. In order to tackle the SIRPSD with notorious computational complexity, we first propose an approximate model, which significantly reduces the number of decision variables compared to its corresponding exact model. We then develop a hybrid approach that combines the linearization of nonlinear constraints, the decomposition of the model into sub-models with Lagrangian relaxation, and a partial linearization approach for a sub model. A near optimal solution of the model found by the approach is used to construct a near optimal solution of the SIRPSD. Randomly generated instances of the problem with up to 200 customers and 5 periods and about 400 thousands decision variables where half of them are integer are examined by numerical experiments. Our approach can obtain high quality near optimal solutions within a reasonable amount of computation time on an ordinary PC.     

Linear separation and approximation by minimizing the sum of concave functions of distances

One recently proposed criterion to separate two data sets in Classification is to use a hyperplane that minimizes the sum of distances to it from all the misclassified data points, where misclassification means lying on the wrong side of the hyperplane, or rather in the wrong halfspace. In this paper we study an extension of this problem: we seek the hyperplane minimizing the sum of concave nondecreasing functions of the distances of misclassified points to it. It is shown that an optimal hyperplane exists containing at least $d$ affinely independent points. This extends the result known for the minimization of the sum of distances, and enables to use combinatorial local-search heuristics for this problem. As a corollary, the same result is obtained for the approximation problem in which a hyperplane minimizing the sum of concave nondecreasing functions of the distances from a set of data points is sought.     

Comparing backhauling strategies in vehicle routing using Ant Colony Optimization

In the Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls and Time Windows (VRPBTW) customers either receive goods from the depot or send goods to the depot and pickup or delivery at a customer has to occur within a pre-specified time window. The main objective is to minimize the total required fleet size for serving all customers. Secondary objectives are to minimize the total distance travelled or to minimize the total route duration of all vehicles. In this paper we consider a variant of the mixed VRPBTW where backhauls may be served before linehauls on any given route. Besides the modelling aspect of this variant we will study its performance implications when compared to the standard VRPBTW using a heuristic algorithm based on Ant Colony Optimization.