Colos: A collection optimization system as an application of the vehicle scheduling problem

✍ Scribed by Piotr Cegiełła; Wacław Szymanowski; Jerzy Prokuratorski

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1986
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 589 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0377-2217
• DOI: 10.1016/s0377-2217(86)80009-1

✦ Synopsis

This article deals with an example of the real problem of the Vehicle Collection optimization, which enables the plants to carry on their production. The problem has been solved in Poland in the delivery of milk to dairy plants. The milk collection optimization, however, is not a simple inversion of dairy product deliveries in town. Therefore we have the Vehicle Collection Problem (VCP) as an extension of the Vehicle Scheduling Problem (VSP). Next we present the idea of the MULTICOLMILK procedure, which satisfied several technical and organizational constraints of the milk collection process. To solve the VCP we have developed a modular Collection Optimization System (COLOS). The basic component of the COLOS is an optimization module based on the MULTICOLM1LK procedure. The last part of the article contains implementation results in the dairy plants of Konin, Gniezno, Zielona G6ra, and Cz~stochowa, together with the presentation of difficulties which have cropped up in the course of preparation and implementation processes.