A Capacitated Vehicle Routing Model for Distribution and Repair with a Service Center

Irma-Delia Rojas-Cuevas, Elias Olivares-Benitez (), Alfredo S. Ramos and Samuel Nucamendi-Guillén
Additional contact information
Irma-Delia Rojas-Cuevas: Departamento de Ingenierías, Tecnológico Nacional de México Campus Puebla, Av. Tecnológico 420, Puebla 72000, Puebla, Mexico
Elias Olivares-Benitez: Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad Panamericana, Alvaro del Portillo 49, Zapopan 45010, Jalisco, Mexico
Alfredo S. Ramos: Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad Panamericana, Alvaro del Portillo 49, Zapopan 45010, Jalisco, Mexico
Samuel Nucamendi-Guillén: Facultad de Ingenieria, Universidad Panamericana, Alvaro del Portillo 49, Zapopan 45010, Jalisco, Mexico

Logistics, 2025, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-36

Abstract: Background: Distribution systems often face the dual challenge of delivering products to customers and retrieving damaged items for repair, especially when the service center is separate from the depot. An optimized solution to this logistics problem produces benefits in terms of costs, greenhouse gas emissions, and disposal reduction. Methods: This research proposes a Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem with Service Center (CVRPwSC) model to determine optimal routes involving customers, the depot, and the service center. AMPL-Gurobi was used to solve the model on adapted instances and new instances developed for the CVRPwSC. Additionally, a Variable Neighborhood Search (VNS) algorithm was implemented and compared with AMPL-Gurobi. Results: The model was applied to a real-world case study, achieving a 40% reduction in fuel costs, a reduction from 5 to 3 routes, and a sustainable logistics operations model with potential reductions of greenhouse gas emissions and item disposals. Conclusions: The main contribution of the proposal is a minimum-cost routing model integrating item returns for repair with customer deliveries, while the limitation is the exclusion of scenarios where return items exceed vehicle capacity. Finally, future research will enhance the CVRPwSC model by incorporating additional constraints and decision variables to address such scenarios.

Keywords: vehicle routing; pickup and delivery; VNS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L8 L80 L81 L86 L87 L9 L90 L91 L92 L93 L98 L99 M1 M10 M11 M16 M19 R4 R40 R41 R49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/9/1/28/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6290/9/1/28/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlogis:v:9:y:2025:i:1:p:28-:d:1589591

Access Statistics for this article

Logistics is currently edited by Ms. Mavis Li

More articles in Logistics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().