This paper introduces the Inventory-Routing Problem with Transshipment (IRPT). This problem arises when vehicle routing and inventory decisions must be made simultaneously, which is typically the case in vendor-managed inventory systems. Heuristics and exact algorithms have already been proposed for the Inventory-Routing Problem (IRP), but these algorithms ignore the possibility of performing t...

Inventory-routing problems (IRPs) arise in vendor-managed inventory systems. They require jointly solving a vehicle routing problem and an inventory management problem. Whereas the solutions they yield tend to benefit the vendor and customers, solving IRPs solely based on cost considerations may lead to inconveniences to both parties. These are related to the fleet size and vehicle load, to the...

T work is motivated by the need to solve the inventory routing problem when implementing a business practice called vendor managed inventory replenishment. With vendor managed inventory replenishment, vendors monitor their customers’ inventories, and decide when and how much inventory should be replenished at each customer. The inventory routing problem attempts to coordinate inventory replenis...

This study formulates a two-objective model to determine the optimal liner routing, ship size, and sailing frequency for container carriers by minimizing shipping costs and inventory costs. First, shipping and inventory cost functions are formulated using an analytical method. Then, based on a trade-off between shipping costs and inventory costs, Pareto optimal solutions of the twoobjective mod...

The integrated production, inventory and distribution routing problem (PDRP) is concerned with coordinating the production, inventory and delivery operations to meet customer demand with an objective to minimize the cost. The particular PDRP that we consider in this study also involves heterogeneous transporters with non-instantaneous traveling times and many customer demand centers each with i...

We consider the inventory-routing problem in a three-level distribution system with a single vendor, a single warehouse and many geographically dispersed retailers. In this problem, each retailer faces a demand at a deterministic, retailer-specific rate. The demand of each retailer is replenished either from the warehouse by a small vehicle or from the vendor bypassing the warehouse by a big ve...

This paper presents a solution method based on column generation for the Inventory Location Routing Problem. It chooses simultaneously the location of a set of depots to decide upon the inventory management and the set of routes to satisfy customers’ demands, in order to minimize the total system cost. The original problem is decomposed into a Master Problem (Location Problem) and an Auxiliary ...

In this study, a two phase hybrid heuristic approach was proposed to solve the multi-depot multi-vehicle inventory routing problem (MDMVIRP). Inventory routing problem (IRP) is one of the major issues in the supply chain networks that arise in the context of vendor managed systems (VMI) The MDMVIRP combines inventory management and routing decision. We are given on input a fleet of homogeneous ...