Title: Lagrangian heuristic for supply perishable products in two-echelon distribution network

Authors: Sona Kande; Christian Prins; Lucile Belgacem; Thibault Lhermitte

Addresses: FuturMaster, 1 cours de l'île Seguin, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France ' ICD-LOSI, University of Technology of Troyes, 12 rue Marie Curie, CS 42060, 10004 Troyes Cedex, France ' FuturMaster, 1 cours de l'île Seguin, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France ' FuturMaster, 1 cours de l'île Seguin, 92100 Boulogne-Billancourt, France

Abstract: This article presents a planning problem in a distribution network incorporating two levels inventory management of perishable products, lot-sizing, multi-sourcing and transport capacity with a homogeneous fleet of vehicles. This study is carried out in collaboration with a designer of an advanced planning system (APS) software. This type of network has been encountered in recent years by several customers, such as in the distribution of dairy products or beverages and with instances that can reach large sizes. A mixed integer linear programming (MILP) is developed to solve this real planning problem. There are some instances for which the solver cannot give a good lower bound within the maximum calculation time and for other instances it takes a lot of time to solve MILP. A Lagrangian relaxation is implemented to evaluate these instances. A repair heuristic is applied to the corresponding solutions, for which the cost tends to fall during iterations.

Keywords: Lagrangian heuristic; lot-sizing; multi-echelon inventory; multi-sourcing; perishable product; transport capacity.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2019.097585

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2019 Vol.32 No.2, pp.220 - 244

Received: 11 May 2016
Accepted: 26 Aug 2017

Published online: 30 Jan 2019 *

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