Thirty Years of Inventory Routing

Leandro C. Coelho (), Jean-François Cordeau () and Gilbert Laporte ()
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Leandro C. Coelho: CIRRELT and Faculté des sciences de l'administration, Laval University, Quebec G1V 0A6, Canada
Jean-François Cordeau: CIRRELT and HEC Montréal, Montréal H3T 2A7, Canada
Gilbert Laporte: CIRRELT and HEC Montréal, Montréal H3T 2A7, Canada

Transportation Science, 2014, vol. 48, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: The inventory-routing problem (IRP) dates back 30 years. It can be described as the combination of vehicle-routing and inventory management problems, in which a supplier has to deliver products to a number of geographically dispersed customers, subject to side constraints. It provides integrated logistics solutions by simultaneously optimizing inventory management, vehicle routing, and delivery scheduling. Some exact algorithms and several powerful metaheuristic and matheuristic approaches have been developed for this class of problems, especially in recent years. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of this literature, based on a new classification of the problem. We categorize IRPs with respect to their structural variants and the availability of information on customer demand.

Keywords: inventory routing; survey; literature review; history (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (98)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:48:y:2014:i:1:p:1-19

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