The location-routing problem with multi-compartment and multi-trip: formulation and heuristic approaches

ABSTRACT

The location-routing problem with multi-compartment and multi-trip is an extension to the standard location-routing problem. In this problem, depots are used to deliver different products using heterogeneous vehicles with several compartments. Each compartment has a limited capacity and is dedicated to a single type of product. The problem is formulated as a mixed integer program. A constructive heuristic and a hybrid genetic algorithm (HGA) are proposed. Numerical experiments show that both heuristics can efficiently determine the optimal solutions on small size instances. For larger ones, the HGA outperforms the constructive heuristic with relatively more computational time. Managerial insights have been obtained from sensitivity analyses which would be helpful to improve the performance of the supply network.

KEYWORDS:

• Location-routing problem
• multi-compartment
• multi-trip
• mixed integer program
• heuristic

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to three anonymous referees for the useful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Ilkyeong Moon http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7072-1351

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province [grant number 17NDJC194YB]. This work was partly supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning [grant number NRF-2017R1A2B2007812].