Forward and reverse logistics vehicle routing problems with time horizons in B2C e-commerce logistics

Mengdi Zhang, Saurabh Pratap, Zhiheng Zhao, D. Prajapati, George Q. Huang

Research output: Journal article publicationJournal articleAcademic researchpeer-review

39 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This research addresses a vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and delivery with time windows from multiple depots (MVRPSPDTW) over a time horizon in the B2C e-commerce logistics system. We consider an e-commerce logistics system with a multi-period, which consists of customers, logistics service providers (LSPs), suppliers, and a decision-making platform. A mixed-integer non-linear programming (MINLP) model is developed and tested on small- and large-scale instances. To handle more realistic large-scale problems, we have used two approaches (i) exact optimisation approach using (i.e. CPLEX tool) and metaheuristic algorithms (i.e. Differential Evolutionary Algorithm (DE), Parallel Differential Evolutionary Algorithm (Par-DE), Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Block-based Genetic Algorithm (BBGA)) to minimise the total transportation cost and penalty due to the delay by logistics service providers. The computation experiment is conducted on the real practical scenario data and the comparative result is demonstrated.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6291-6310
Number of pages20
JournalInternational Journal of Production Research
Volume59
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Oct 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • CPLEX
  • differential evolutionary algorithm
  • E-commerce logistics
  • meta-heuristic
  • reverse logistics
  • vehicle routing problem

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Strategy and Management
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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