Scheduling Problem With Renewable Resource For Inbound Logistics: Models And Opitimization Algorithms

In the parts inbound logistics of automotive industry, vehicles need touse the special containers for parts transportation and loading. As a kind ofrenewable resource, the insufficiency of containers would lead to low loadratio, vehicle idleness, and transportation inefficiency. This paper studiesmulti-vehicle scheduling problem under container resource constraintswith the objective of minimizing the makespan.First step, giving the mathematical description of this problem andanalyzing its complexity. Then, a mixed integer linear programming modelis first built. Heuristic algorithms and optimization algorithms based onrelaxation techniques are further proposed. Based on some factors of thisprolem, there are several numerical experiments designed to test the theperformance of several algorithms. To verify the effectiveness andefficiency of algorithms, large-scale numerical experiments have beendone.Model and algorithm of this paper has strong theoretical value. It canbe applied to practice for the third-party logistics companies in optimizingoperational efficiency of inbound parts distribution system.