Title: Ant colony optimisation algorithm for location routing decisions in a supply chain

Authors: Vinay V. Panicker; M. Vamshidhar Reddy; R. Sridharan

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut, Calicut – 673601, Kerala, India ' Program Management Office, Solid Propellant Space Booster Plant, Indian Space Research Organization, Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology Calicut, Calicut – 673601, Kerala, India

Abstract: In this work, an ant colony optimisation-based heuristic is developed to solve the location-routing problem. The proposed heuristic solves the allocation problem and the routing problem simultaneously. This simultaneous approach is the novelty of the solution methodology. The proposed heuristic is tested on a set of well-known benchmark problem instances and the results obtained are compared with that using the other heuristics reported in the literature. For larger size problem instances, the proposed heuristic provides better solutions.

Keywords: supply chain configuration; location routing problem; ant colony optimisation; ACO; heuristics; supply chain management; SCM.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVCM.2016.080433

International Journal of Value Chain Management, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.285 - 316

Received: 09 Jan 2016
Accepted: 23 Jul 2016

Published online: 22 Nov 2016 *

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