Optimizing Route Planning for Minimising the Non-added-Value Tasks Times: A Simultaneous Pickup-and-Delivery Problem

Abstract

The quick-change industrial environment pushes organisations to find new ways to improve efficiency, flexibility, and responsiveness. To do so, companies must not solely focus on improving the main value chain, but also the support services that provide for it. To this end, this paper focuses on a route optimization study, inspired by a real-case problem of the Manufacturing Tool Repair Service, from an automotive company. The problem consists of a vehicle routing problem with simultaneous delivery and pickup and time windows, subjected to specific service constraints. To solve it, we propose a Mathematical-Integer Linear Programming model, which is triggered by real-time data from the shopfloor. The approach was tested, and the results show an average of 30% improvement compared with the current situation. Additionally, the model was tested using modified benchmark instances and a time windows sensitivity analysis was performed. Considering the results obtained, future work regarding the application of a hybrid algorithm is proposed