An Optimization Approach To Order Allocation Problem Of Online Retailers With Multi-warehouse In One Metropolitan Area

With the rapid development of domestic e-commerce,online retailers in multi-depotmode that represented by JD.com and Tmall supermarkets are gradually becoming the vane of e-commerce industry development.Online retailers in multi-depot mode usually sell a wide range of products,which brings great convenience to people's life,and poses unprecedented challenges to operation and development of the e-commerce companies.With the features of large number of multi-item orders and multi-warehouse in a metropolitan area,when the orders are split and distributed to warehouse,many orders are split into multiple sub-orders due to the constraints of the category and quantity stored in each warehouse.This unreasonable allocation of orders often leads to multiple times of delivery,which not only greatly increased the total distribution cost of the e-commerce enterprise,but also greatly reduced customer satisfaction.Order splitting and matching is a key link to the online retailer's order fulfillment process that in multi-depot mode.The result of order allocation directly determines whether the subsequent order processing process can be effectively carried out.The order allocation of online retailers in multi-depot mode,not only has to consider how to split and allocate orders under the existing inventory structure of the warehouse,but also considers how to plan the number of vehicles dispatched by each warehouse and the routing path in the logistics distribution link under the established order allocation plan.Therefore,the order allocation problem is a very complex joint optimization problem.Focusing on the characteristics of online retailer customer orders under the e-commerce environment,this paper conducts research on order splitting and allocation of online retailers in multi-depot mode.Considering the situation that category splitting and quantity splitting coexist,firstly this paper analyzes of the influencing factors of order splitting,and proposes a new principle named “minimum the number of split orders”.With the goal of minimizing the total logistics distribution cost,this paper combine the order allocation with the follow up vehicle routing decisions in subsequent logistics links,establishes a joint optimization model for online retailer order allociong optimization and vehicle routing problem.Secondly,In terms of model solving,based on the idea of hierarhchical solution,a three-stage heuristic solution algorithm is proposed: the first stage is to using an improved breadth-first algorithm to generate a set of alternative order allocation and initial order allocation;the second stageis to using an improved tabu search algorithm to generate the initial vehicle route plan which based on the initial order allocation;the third stage is to find a better solution by using the improved neighborhood search algorithm,which based on the different order processing sequence and the set of alternatives.Finally,based on the characteristics of the online retailer in multi-depot mode,an example is generated to verify the effectiveness and practicability of the model and algorithm in solving the online retailers' order allocation problem.The results show that in the case where category and quantity split orders coexisting,the order allocation result using the “minimum the number of split orders” as the order splitting rule is better than the existing order splitting rules.In addition,the adjustment of the order of order processing within the wave can effectively reduce the number of order splits and the total logistics distribution cost of subsequent links.