Article ID: | iaor20021215 |
Country: | United States |
Volume: | 31 |
Issue: | 11 |
Start Page Number: | 1083 |
End Page Number: | 1092 |
Publication Date: | Jan 1999 |
Journal: | IIE Transactions |
Authors: | Matson J.O., Miller D.M., Vaidyanathan B.S., Matson J.E. |
Keywords: | production: JIT |
This paper focuses on the formulation and solution of the problem of planning vehicle routes for material delivery within the premises of a plant working under a just-in-time production system. The unique characteristic of this problem is that the quantity to be delivered at each of the demand nodes is a function of the route taken by the vehicle assigned to serve that node. The problem is modeled by adding a non-linear capacity constraint to the standard vehicle routing model, such that vehicle idle times and inventories at the customer locations are minimized. A heuristic solution procedure is outlined, and the formulation of a lower-bound relaxation is suggested. The performance of the heuristic solution procedure is evaluated in comparison to the lower-bound relaxation, and the heuristic procedure is shown to provide generally good results.