A simheuristic algorithm for horizontal cooperation in urban distribution: Application to a case study in Colombia

The challenge in last-mile supply chains deliveries is to maintain and improve the operational cost-effectiveness by the implementation of efficient procedures while facing increased levels of congestion in cities. One competitive alternative is Horizontal Cooperation (HC). City distribution problem...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Quintero, C., Montoya, J., Muñoz, A.
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:Colombia
Recursos:Universidad de los Andes
Repositorio:Séneca: repositorio Uniandes
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uniandes.edu.co:1992/46983
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/1992/46983
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7822261
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Simheuristic algorithm
Horizontal cooperation
Urban distribution
Colombia
Descrição
Resumo:The challenge in last-mile supply chains deliveries is to maintain and improve the operational cost-effectiveness by the implementation of efficient procedures while facing increased levels of congestion in cities. One competitive alternative is Horizontal Cooperation (HC). City distribution problems under HC conditions can be modeled as multi-depot vehicle routing problems, which are NP-hard problems meaning that exact methods provide optimal solutions only for small datasets. This complexity increases when considering stochastic demand. Therefore, real-life situations must be solved using heuristic algorithms. This paper proposes the implementation of a simheuristic (i.e., an algorithm combining heuristics with simulation). Experiments are carried out using realistic data from the city of Bogotá, Colombia, regarding the distribution of goods to the whole network of the three major chains of convenience stores currently operating in the city. Results show the power of the proposed simheuristic in comparison with traditional solution approaches based on mathematical programming.