Optimizing single-terminal dispatch of large volume trips to trucks

This paper considers the problem of delivering large volumes of products from a single supplier to a set of commercial outlets with the use of a non-homogeneous fleet of trucks. The non-homogeneity implies different costs and, hence, traditional methods which measure miles, hours, and/or number of trucks are not appropriate. The problem may be modeled as an elastic generalized assignment problem. A special purpose branch and bound algorithm is developed and a set of real-world distribution problems and solved.