A Model and Solution Method for Solving the Real-world and Complex Problem of Scheduling Visits to Customers

Some of the complex logistical problems faced by companies combine the needs for strategic and tactical decisionsconcerning the interrelated issues of clustering, scheduling, and routing. Various strategies can be used to solve theseproblems. We present a problem of this type, involving a company wh...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Baldoquin de la Peña, M.G., Escalera Fariñas, A., Linfati, R.
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2014
Country:México
Institution:UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO
Repository:Journal of Applied Research and Technology
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs2.localhost:article/197
Online Access:https://jart.icat.unam.mx/index.php/jart/article/view/197
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:logistics
scheduling
heuristic
Description
Summary:Some of the complex logistical problems faced by companies combine the needs for strategic and tactical decisionsconcerning the interrelated issues of clustering, scheduling, and routing. Various strategies can be used to solve theseproblems. We present a problem of this type, involving a company whose fundamental objective is thecommercialization of its product in the domestic market. The paper focuses on a model of and method for a solution tothe problem of scheduling visits to customers, taking into account the relationship with other phases of productmarketing. The model is nonlinear, involves binary and continuous variables, and solved heuristically. Computationalexperiments show that the proposed solution performed very well for both real-life and theoretical instances.