Multi-Product Inventory-Routing Problem in the Supermarket Distribution Industry
-
Demetrio Laganà
and
Francesco Santoro
Abstract
The Inventory Routing Problem (IRP) is an integrated logistic problem arising in several industries (e.g. petrochemical, grocery, soft drink and automotive). A vendor decides the optimal delivery strategy for a set of customers, taking into account their inventory policies and avoiding product stock-out in a finite and discrete time horizon. Delivery strategy includes the time and size of deliveries in order to minimize the total delivery cost. Most commonly studied are IRP real cases where a single homogeneous product with deterministic but time-varying demand is delivered over a finite time horizon. This paper is focused on an efficient methodology for industrial problems where a vendor resupplies a set of customers of heterogeneous products (as in the supermarket distribution industry). In this context, the paper reports on an effort facing the inventory routing problem for multi-category products per customer in conjunction with different inventory policies per category. The paper is motivated by real applications arising in the food engineering field. For instance, industries dealing with food’s distribution to stores located in a given geographic area. The planning strategy is formulated as a linear model. The core of the decision problem consists in determining both the delivery route and the corresponding day of activation along the time horizon. A decomposition of the problem into two phases has been proposed. A suitable penalty cost modeled by simulating the possibility of having an early or delayed product delivery on the delivery day returned from the inventory model (e.g. Economic Order Quantity) is the key feature of the first phase. In the second phase, deliveries are scheduled on a daily basis by taking into account the time windows associated to each customer. This is accomplished by using a constructive heuristic algorithm for the vehicle routing problem with time windows. Computational results on some realistic instances are presented and discussed.
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©2015 by De Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Selected Papers from MAS2014 Workshop
- Special Section “Selected papers from the workshop on Modeling and Simulation of Food Processing and Operations of the MAS 2014 conference (Bordeaux, September 10–12, 2014)”
- Three-Dimensional CFD Simulation of a “Steam Water Spray” Retort Process for Food Vegetable Products
- Temperature Analysis of the Water Supply System of a Dairy Company by Means of a Simulation Model
- Multi-Product Inventory-Routing Problem in the Supermarket Distribution Industry
- Decision Support System, Based on the Paradigm of the Petri Nets, for the Design and Operation of a Dairy Plant
- Critical Reviews
- Rice: Parboiling and Milling Properties
- A Review of Drying Processes in the Production of Pumpkin Powder
- Original Research Articles
- Modelling of Changes in Postharvest Quality Parameters of Stored Carrots Subjected to Pre- and Postharvest Treatments
- Evaluation of Viscosity of Non-Newtonian Liquid Foods with a Flow Tube Instrument
- Characterization of Pyrolysis Products Obtained from Desmodesmus sp. Cultivated in Anaerobic Digested Effluents (DADE)
- The Effects of Nano-SiO2 on Mechanical, Barrier, and Moisture Sorption Isotherm Models of Novel Soluble Soybean Polysaccharide Films
- Adsorption and Desorption Studies of Anthocyanins from Black Peanut Skins on Macroporous Resins
- Convective Air Drying Characteristics and Qualities of Non-fried Instant Noodles
- Microwave-Assisted Extraction of Trigona Propolis: The Effects of Processing Parameters
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Selected Papers from MAS2014 Workshop
- Special Section “Selected papers from the workshop on Modeling and Simulation of Food Processing and Operations of the MAS 2014 conference (Bordeaux, September 10–12, 2014)”
- Three-Dimensional CFD Simulation of a “Steam Water Spray” Retort Process for Food Vegetable Products
- Temperature Analysis of the Water Supply System of a Dairy Company by Means of a Simulation Model
- Multi-Product Inventory-Routing Problem in the Supermarket Distribution Industry
- Decision Support System, Based on the Paradigm of the Petri Nets, for the Design and Operation of a Dairy Plant
- Critical Reviews
- Rice: Parboiling and Milling Properties
- A Review of Drying Processes in the Production of Pumpkin Powder
- Original Research Articles
- Modelling of Changes in Postharvest Quality Parameters of Stored Carrots Subjected to Pre- and Postharvest Treatments
- Evaluation of Viscosity of Non-Newtonian Liquid Foods with a Flow Tube Instrument
- Characterization of Pyrolysis Products Obtained from Desmodesmus sp. Cultivated in Anaerobic Digested Effluents (DADE)
- The Effects of Nano-SiO2 on Mechanical, Barrier, and Moisture Sorption Isotherm Models of Novel Soluble Soybean Polysaccharide Films
- Adsorption and Desorption Studies of Anthocyanins from Black Peanut Skins on Macroporous Resins
- Convective Air Drying Characteristics and Qualities of Non-fried Instant Noodles
- Microwave-Assisted Extraction of Trigona Propolis: The Effects of Processing Parameters
