Vehicle routing problem with time windows: A case study of YCH protrade Binh Duong

Abstract

The Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) is one of the most important transportation problems in logistics and supply chain management. By using cases study YCH Protrade, which is a group leading regional supply chain network Asia Pacific, this paper addresses a Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (VRPTW) - a variant of VRP. We propose a mixed-integer linear programming model that solves the optimal YCH company’s routes. In this study, a lot of clients with deterministic requests for delivery and pick-up must be visited by the number of identical vehicles, all of which starting from a warehouse, visiting all customers only once and returning to the warehouse. In each node on its journey, truck can't take a total load more than its capacity. The objective is to find the routes that represent the minimum total distance with limited number of trucks and time windows. Comparison results show that, after using mixed-integer linear programming model for VRPTW, transportation distance reduced to 17 % compared to the current. At the same time, with the two criterions of load and time utilization are also significantly improved, satisfying the expectations of the company. Keywords: Vehicle Routing Problem, Time Windows, VRP, VRPTW, Mixedinteger linear programming (MILP).