Heuristic for solving routing problem in Supply Chain Management. (17th September 2008)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rajmohan, M.; Shahabudeen, P.
• Is Part Of: International journal of applied decision sciences. Volume 1:Number 2(2008)
• Page Start: 153
• Page End: 178
• Publication Date: 2008-09-17
• Subjects: vehicle routing problem -- VRP -- time windows -- logistics -- supply chain management -- SCM -- ant colony optimisation -- ACO; Decision making -- Periodicals; Management science -- Periodicals; 658.403005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1755-8077

Abstract

Transportation costs constitute a significant fraction of total logistics cost in Supply Chain Management (SCM). To reduce transportation costs and to improve customer service, the optimal selection of the vehicle route is a frequent decision problem and this is commonly known as Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) is an important variant of VRP and also a practical problem in real-world applications. Since VRPTW belongs to NP hard problem, development of heuristics is a prime concern. In this paper, an ant colony based heuristic is developed to solve VRPTW. The heuristic is tested with benchmark instances and provides improved solutions.