Integrating vehicle routing and resource allocation in a pharmaceutical network

A problem integrating resource allocation and transportation is consideredhere as an extension of the well-knownvehicle routing problem. It was proposed bya pharmaceutical company, for which items (blood samples) have to be typicallytransported from doctor offices to laboratories (where the items are analyzed bymachines) by a fleet of identical vehicles. The following specific features are con-sidered: multiple pickups, multiple depots, multiple products, transfers, due dates,service level, and dropout level. The goal consists in minimizing the employed re-source (i.e., machines, vehicles) and the traveling times of the vehicles. We proposean iterative solution method based on the following sequence of steps: build sectors,build routes, assign vehicles to routes, try to find a solution with fewer machines.Numerical experiments are reported and discussed from a managerial standpoin