Internationale Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Managementwissenschaften

Vehicle Routing for Multiple Cross-Docks in Distribution Center with Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

Nayrhit Bhattacharya

Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) have been one of the most complex planning tasks of logistics management in any supply chain. One of the real-life extensions of VRPs is incorporating the facility of cross-docking in it. Ensuring a smooth flow of goods across such a system is a crucial task for any logistics firm when there are many cross docks. The distribution center collects different inbound products from respective suppliers and delivers outbound products to various customers with the help of a state-of-the-art transportation and material handling system. The objective of this paper is to address the VRP, which minimizes the total cost of operations in view of a set of constraints under the scenario of multiple cross-docks. This has been solved using a variant of Genetic Algorithm with Best Cost Route Crossover and Swap Mutation. The algorithm has been applied on three test problems and the stability has been verified. The main contribution of this paper is that it highlights the issue of VRP in multiple cross-docks.