CLASH: a heuristic to solve vehicle routing problems with delivery, pick-up and time windows

K. Ganesh and T.T. Narendran

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2007, vol. 3, issue 4, 460-477

Abstract: This paper presents a multistage heuristic to solve a vehicle routing problem with delivery, pick-up and time windows that is applicable to the public healthcare system. Blood banks constitute a vital part of public healthcare services. Their logistics include blood procurement, processing, cross-matching, storage, distribution, recycling, pricing, quality control and outdating. This paper seeks to study the operational decision-making in the distribution of blood. The problem is considered with the condition that pick-up should occur last. We propose a methodology that exploits the inherent features of the problem. Prior to a meta-heuristic search, we form clusters of nodes, determine the route to be followed within a cluster and assign vehicles to routes in a feasible manner. Using this as input, we develop a genetic algorithm with innovative operators for crossover and mutation and conduct a rapid search to find a near-optimal solution. Computational results show that the new heuristic can solve problems effectively. Some of the results are better than the best solutions that have appeared in the literature.

Keywords: logistics; vehicle routing; time windows; clustering; genetic algorithms; delivery; pick-up; public healthcare; operations management; operational decision making; blood banks; blood distribution. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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