Single-vendor single-buyer with integrated transport–inventory system: Models and heuristics in the case of perishable goods

We consider the problem of shipping a set of products from a single origin (the vendor) to a common destination (the buyer) with the objective of minimizing the sum of the inventory and transportation costs, when a set of shipping frequencies is given and products are assumed to be perishable. We provide a mixed integer linear programming model for the problem and propose the modification of known heuristic algorithms to solve it. Extensive computational results show how some of the modified heuristics are extremely efficient and effective.