CLASH: a heuristic to solve vehicle routing problems with delivery, pick-up and time windows Online publication date: Mon, 30-Apr-2007
by K. Ganesh, T.T. Narendran
International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM), Vol. 3, No. 4, 2007
Abstract: This paper presents a multistage heuristic to solve a vehicle routing problem with delivery, pick-up and time windows that is applicable to the public healthcare system. Blood banks constitute a vital part of public healthcare services. Their logistics include blood procurement, processing, cross-matching, storage, distribution, recycling, pricing, quality control and outdating. This paper seeks to study the operational decision-making in the distribution of blood. The problem is considered with the condition that pick-up should occur last. We propose a methodology that exploits the inherent features of the problem. Prior to a meta-heuristic search, we form clusters of nodes, determine the route to be followed within a cluster and assign vehicles to routes in a feasible manner. Using this as input, we develop a genetic algorithm with innovative operators for crossover and mutation and conduct a rapid search to find a near-optimal solution. Computational results show that the new heuristic can solve problems effectively. Some of the results are better than the best solutions that have appeared in the literature.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com