A location-routing problem for biomass supply chains

Facility location and vehicle routing are two critical decision problems in the design of biomass supply chains. Different from previous studies considering these two problems separately, this paper integrates the facility location and the vehicle routing problems for biomass supply chains into a single one, namely the location-routing problem for biomass supply chains (LRP-BSCs). A mixed integer programming model is established for the LRP-BSCs, which can achieve the optimal decisions for small-scale instances. Due to the intrinsic computational complexity of the LRP-BSCs, a hierarchical heuristic algorithm based on Tabu Search is developed for the problem solution. Comprehensive computational examples verify that the proposed approach is effective and efficient.

Automated summary

This paper integrates facility location and vehicle routing problems in biomass supply chains into a single problem, and proposes a hierarchical heuristic algorithm based on Tabu Search to address the computational complexity of LRP-BSCs. Computational examples demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.