Vehicle routing problem for multi-product cross-docking

• Main Authors: GUNAWAN, Aldy, WIDJAJA, Audrey Tedja, GAN, Benjamin, YU, Vincent F., JODIAWAN, Panca
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Vehicle routing problem; Cross-docking; Multiple products; Mathematical programming model; Computer Sciences; Operations and Supply Chain Management; Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/5258; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/6261/viewcontent/98_AbstractPaperFile_1011101615.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Cross-docking is a logistic technique that can reduce costs occurred in a supply chain network while increasing the flow of goods, thus shortening the shipping cycle. Inside a cross-dock facility, the goods are directly transferred from incoming vehicles to outgoing vehicles without storing them in-between. Our research extends and combines this cross-docking technique with a well-known logistic problem, the vehicle routing problem (VRP), for delivering multiple products and addresses it as the VRP for multi-product cross-docking (VRP-MPCD). We developed a mixed integer programming model and generated two sets of VRP-MPCD instances, which are based on VRPCD instances. The instances are solved by a commercial software AMPL with CPLEX solver. The findings show that the small instances can be solved optimally by CPLEX. However, larger instances cannot be solved optimally within predefined computational times.