Integrated production and distribution planning for perishable food products

Certain types of food, such as catering foods, decay very rapidly. This paper investigates how the quality of such foods can be improved by shortening the time interval between production and delivery. To this end, we develop an approach that integrates short-term production and distribution planning in an iterative scheme. Further, an aggregation scheme is developed as the interface between the production scheduling and distribution problem. The production scheduling problem is solved through an MILP modeling approach which is based on a block planning formulation. Our implementation shows promising results, elaborated in a numerical investigation, which recollects the real settings of a catering company located in Denmark.

[1]  Renzo Akkerman,et al.  Quality, safety and sustainability in food distribution: a review of quantitative operations management approaches and challenges , 2010, OR Spectr..

[2]  Wilbert E. Wilhelm,et al.  Scheduling and lot sizing with sequence-dependent setup: A literature review , 2006 .

[3]  Marius M. Solomon,et al.  Algorithms for the Vehicle Routing and Scheduling Problems with Time Window Constraints , 1987, Oper. Res..

[4]  M. Lütke entrup,et al.  Mixed-Integer Linear Programming approaches to shelf-life-integrated planning and scheduling in yoghurt production , 2005 .

[5]  Lidija Zadnik Stirn,et al.  A vehicle routing algorithm for the distribution of fresh vegetables and similar perishable food , 2008 .

[6]  Dario Pacciarelli,et al.  A Three-dimensional Matching Model for Perishable Production Scheduling , 1999, Discret. Appl. Math..

[7]  Christos D. Tarantilis,et al.  A meta-heuristic algorithm for the efficient distribution of perishable foods , 2001 .

[8]  Amy Z. Zeng,et al.  A Two-Stage Solution Procedure for Food Delivery Decisions in Cities with Circular Transportation Networks , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics.

[9]  Christos D. Tarantilis,et al.  Distribution of fresh meat , 2002 .

[10]  E. Taylor,et al.  A new method of HACCP for the catering and food service industry , 2008 .

[11]  A. Higgins,et al.  Scheduling of brand production and shipping within a sugar supply chain , 2006, J. Oper. Res. Soc..

[12]  Bilge Bilgen,et al.  Integrated production and distribution planning in the fast moving consumer goods industry: a block planning application , 2010, OR Spectr..

[13]  Belarmino Adenso-Díaz,et al.  A Hierarchical Approach to Managing Dairy Routing , 1998, Interfaces.

[14]  Anna Sciomachen,et al.  A food distribution network problem: a case study , 2007 .

[15]  M. C. Martinez,et al.  RutaRep: a computer package to design dispatching routes in the meat industry , 2005 .

[16]  David Pisinger,et al.  An Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search Heuristic for the Pickup and Delivery Problem with Time Windows , 2006, Transp. Sci..

[17]  Hui-Chieh Li,et al.  Vehicle routing problem with time-windows for perishable food delivery , 2007 .

[18]  C. Klein,et al.  Single-machine scheduling with sequence dependent setup to minimize total weighted squared tardiness , 1999 .

[19]  Zhi-Long Chen,et al.  Integrated Production and Outbound Distribution Scheduling: Review and Extensions , 2010, Oper. Res..

[20]  Mei-Shiang Chang,et al.  Production scheduling and vehicle routing with time windows for perishable food products , 2009, Comput. Oper. Res..

[21]  Martin Grunow,et al.  Realizing block planning concepts in make-and-pack production using MILP modelling and SAP APO © , 2006 .