Routing problems in agricultural cooperatives: A model for optimization of transport vehicle logistics

This study considers the problem of optimizing the routes of vehicles used in an agricultural cooperative that distributes animal feed to its customers. Different peculiarities distinguish our problem from the general Vehicle Routing Problem because there exists a type of time window constraint, truck capacity is limited, trucks are compartmentalized, there are access restrictions for trucks to some farms and our problem has the main objective of maximizing the amount of feed distributed every day and an auxiliary criterion of minimizing the transport costs. We present a mathematical programming formulation of the model that represents the logistics management problem. As solving the exact model is computationally expensive, we opt for a hybrid heuristic approach that first uses an insertion heuristic algorithm to obtain an initial solution and then improvement processes are performed using the so-called simulated annealing metaheuristic. We have built a graphical interface that allows easy use of the system and, in particular, efficient post-optimality analysis. Moreover, this interface can easily interface with other management tools. The utility of our model is shown with real and simulated data sets.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (MTM2014-53395-C3-2-P, MTM2017-87197-C3-3-P).S