The Research on the Inventory Routing Problem with Split Pick-Ups Based on Genetic Algorithm

Modern supply chain management emphasizes coordination of all sectors and improvement of the whole performance. However, most manufacturers focus only on the individual elements of the supply chain (such as inventory, and delivery routes) and fail to consider the interactions in the supply chain. Thus, in this paper, we integrate two principal problems named the inventory control problem and the transportation problem into one problem, and then seek the optimal solution of this combined problem instead of each single problem. A typical supply chain consists of multiple suppliers and one or more assembly plants. In this study, we focus on the multi-period, multi-suppliers, single assembly plant network and set up a mathematics model, and then solve the inventory routing problem with split pick-ups (IRPSP) by genetic algorithm. Finally, we present an example to illustrate the efficiency of method.