Research On Location-routing Problem Considering Customer Choices In Fresh New Retail Mode

In the wave of new retail which appeared at the end of 2016,fresh new retail has become a hot topic due to the good market development prospects,consumption upgrade and the attention of the giants capital.Fresh new retail refers to a new type of fresh retail service developed based on the traditional fresh e-commerce or fresh delivery mode,which emphasizes relying on relevant smart technologies to promote the synergy and integration of online and offline consumer channels.The development of fresh new retail can not only promote the indepth reform of the fresh supply chain mode,but also promote the improvement of China's cold chain infrastructure.However,fresh new retail companies still face high initial investment costs and chalenges from the transforma tio n of online and offline demand.Therefore,this paper studies the location-routing problem that considers customer choices in fresh new retail mode.The Location-Routing Problem(LRP)is a combinatorial optimization problem that combines the facility location problem and vehicle routing problem.This article studies the two-echelon location-routing problem,in which the first echelon involves the transportation assignment between regional cold storages or cooperative fresh production areas and fresh supermarkets,while the second echelon involves the location of the fresh supermarkets,the assignment of demand points and the distribution routing between them.Based on the theory of the location-routing problem and the characteristics of the customer's purchase behavior in fresh new retail mode,this paper incorporates the factor of customer choices into the research scope of the location-routing problem.Firstly,we analyzes the supply chain structure of fresh new retail,and compares it with the traditional vertical or comprehensive fresh e-commerce.The characteristics of the supply chain of fresh new retail are described and the corresponding two-echelon supply chain network model diagram is abstracted.Then,we classify the four typical customer purchase behaviors in fresh new retail,explore the relationship of demand transformation between different purchase behaviors,and quantify the relationship under reasonable assumptions.Then,we take the minimization of the total cost of the system as the objective function and construct a location-routing model that considers customer choices in fresh new retail mode.Based on simulated annealing algorithm and ant colony optimiza tio n algorithm,a two-stage hybrid heuristic algorithm is designed to solve the model.Finally,multiple numerical examples are randomly generated to demonstrate the effective ness and efficiency of the hybrid heuristic algorithm.It is proved that the hybrid heuristic algorithm designed in this paper can obtain the optimal or near optimal solution with higher efficiency when comparing with CPLEX.