A relax‐and‐price heuristic for the inventory‐location‐routing problem. (24th April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Guerrero, W. J.; Prodhon, C.; Velasco, N.; Amaya, C. A.; Ribeiro, Celso; Maniezzo, Vittorio
• Is Part Of: International transactions in operational research. Volume 22:Number 1(2015:Jan.)
• Page Start: 129
• Page End: 148
• Publication Date: 2014-04-24
• Subjects: Operations research -- Periodicals; 003
• DOI: 10.1111/itor.12091
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0969-6016

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>This paper considers the problem of designing a supply chain assuming routing decisions. The objective is to select a subset of depots to open from a set of candidates, the inventory policies for a two‐echelon system, and the set of routes to perform distribution from the upper echelon to the next by a homogeneous fleet of vehicles over a finite planning horizon considering deterministic demand. To solve the problem, a partition is proposed using a Dantzig–Wolfe formulation on the routing variables. A hybridization between column generation, Lagrangian relaxation, and local search is presented within a heuristic procedure. Results demonstrate the capability of the algorithm to compute high quality solutions and empirically estimate the improvement in the cost function of the proposed model at up to 9% compared to the sequential approach. Furthermore, the suggested pricing problem is a new variant of the shortest path problem with applications in urban transportation and telecommunications.</p> </abstract>