A Two-Stage Simulated Annealing Algorithm for the Many-to-Many Milk-Run Routing Problem with Pipeline Inventory Cost

Abstract

In recent years, logistics systems with multiple suppliers and plants in neighboring regions have been flourishing worldwide. However, high logistics costs remain a problem for such systems due to lack of information sharing and cooperation. This paper proposes an extended mathematical model that minimizes transportation and pipeline inventory costs via the many-to-many Milk-run routing mode. Because the problem is NP hard, a two-stage heuristic algorithm is developed by comprehensively considering its characteristics. More specifically, an initial satisfactory solution is generated in the first stage through a greedy heuristic algorithm to minimize the total number of vehicle service nodes and the best insertion heuristic algorithm to determine each vehicle's route. Then, a simulated annealing algorithm (SA) with limited search scope is used to improve the initial satisfactory solution. Thirty numerical examples are employed to test the proposed algorithms. The experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of this algorithm. Further, the superiority of the many-to-many transportation mode over other modes is demonstrated via two case studies.