Logistic Assignment

Asad Munir

BB-18-41

Problem Description:
In this, a problem has been discussed which is then considered to be categorized into two major
decisions. First, a fleet is constructed of different types of vehicles and then the heterogeneous fleet of
vehicles is routed such that all customers’ demand is fulfilled completely. While the storage capacity is
not included in the problem. Each vehicle in the fleet is considered to be different loading capacity
because of the heterogeneous nature of the vehicles in the fleet. Many researches have been done
pondering the question that why a business or company wants network to design its distribution. The
results were in the favor that in order to optimize the transportation costs and to run the business
successfully. In a business, a company accounts 1/5 th cost of the total cost in general accounts to achieve
the profit from the investment and transportation cost. The same has been discussed in this problem
that is to minimize the total cost while fulfilling he customers demand. Using the heterogeneous fleet of
vehicle, the cost includes the operational cost for travelling between the depot and customers in a
route.

This whole problem has been discussed through an example. In that example, there are five customers
with both pickup and delivery demands with addition of two vehicle types with the different capacity
fleet and a depot. A triangle shape denoted with D accounts for the depot node from where the
customers are going to be served while the five different customers are denoted as c1, c2, c3, c4 and c5.

Each customer has a delivery demand denoted as “d” and a pickup demand denoted as “p”.

 C5 (delivery demand=14/pickup demand=14)

 C4 (delivery demand=14/pickup demand=12)
 C3 (delivery demand=15/pickup demand=16)
 C2 (delivery demand=17/pickup demand=18)
 C1 (delivery demand=12/pickup demand=14)

The solution for this example would be demonstrated by cost function,

Fc= Fv+ Tr
This problem can be described by looking at the following constraints:

 Because of the heterogeneous vehicle type, every vehicle possesses different load capacity and
fixed cost.
 At a single time, only one vehicle can serve at a single route.
 At a single route, only a single customer can be served.
 Customers can have two types of demand that’s delivery and pickup demand.
 It is not necessary that a customer has both demands at a time; it may be a delivery demand or
a pickup demand at a single customer.
 If a customer offered a demand, so both delivery demand and pickup demand both should be
meet and fulfilled on a single visit to the respective customer.

Solution:
This problem has been solved by using both vehicles of heterogeneous fleet with two routes
RED and GREEN. Vehicle-1 is assigned to RED routes and Vehicle-2 to Green routes. So, the
arrangement and distribution is made in that sense that both delivery demand and pickup
demand of two different routes become same (same number of units) Out of the five vehicles,
some are directed to the Green route and others are directed to the red route of the fleet to
fulfill the demand of customers with given instructions/rules. There will be some decision
criteria to find the optimal results about travelling routes and vehicle fleet.