Variable neighborhood search incorporating a new bounding procedure for joint replenishment and delivery problem

Abstract

In recent years, joint replenishment and delivery problem (JRD) has been examined extensively in the context of replenishment and inventory control. However, as an extension of joint replenishment problem, the JRD is more complex and difficult to optimize with an exact algorithm. In this study, lower and upper bounds of JRD are obtained approximately but quickly using a novel bounding procedure. Then, a variable neighborhood search (VNS) with the bounding method is developed to solve the JRD. Computational examples show that the bounding procedure can effectively and efficiently determine satisfactory bounds, which are helpful for the proposed VNS. Results of randomly generated examples further indicate that the hybrid VNS performs better than the best known heuristic and metaheuristic for JRD in terms of accuracy.

Keywords:

• Heuristics
• joint replenishment
• delivery
• bound
• variable neighborhood search

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful for the constructive comments of editors and referees. This research is partially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants numbers: 71371080; 71531009) and Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education (No. 15YJA630095).

Notes

Please note this paper has been re-typeset by Taylor & Francis from the manuscript originally provided to the previous publisher.