Research On The Route Optimization Of Tobacco Distribution

With china joined the "Framework Convention on Tobacco Control" of World Health Organization in August 2005,the increase of cigarette sales has slowed down year by year.And the Cigarette industry has to gain more profits by reducing operating costs and exploiting the internal potential.Facing the increasingly fierce competition of tobacco industry,the logistics part has been the third profits source of reducing cost and enhancing the economic profitability.Cigarette distribution is not only an important part of tobacco supply chain management,also the connecting link between tobacco companies and cigarette retailers.Distribution route planning will directly have an affect on the distribution costs,efficiency and the quality of services.And the overall advantage of logistics construction on tobacco industry relies on the Distribution route planning,too.However,the cigarette distribution costs still remain high,the flow unreasonable and route suboptimal among the distribution process.Therefore,according to cost reduction of cigarettes distribution logistics operation improvement,there is much theoretical and actual significance in studying how to optimize the distribution route.The main contents of this paper are as follows:(1)The establishment and solution of cigarette distribution route optimization model.We put forward the two-stage method to optimize distribution routes,and the model will be decomposed into a cluster–first and route-second method.Firstly we generated initial cluster center by K-MEANS clustering algorithm,then adjust the clustering region according to the capability of distributing vehicles and workload,and last establish cigarette distribution route optimization model with least total distribution costs.(2)Example simulation and Analysis.We take Chongqing tobacco logistics as an example,and testify the feasibility of route optimization of Chongqing cigarette distribution.Then compare the inter-regional distribution joint distribution model with independent distribution model.And we proved that the former one is much more optimized from the perspectives of vehicles number,the average loading rate and total distance and costs of distribution.On the basis of the above research,we can draw the following conclusions:(1)Cigarette distribution route optimization problem could be decomposed intoregionalism and routing problems.And the clustering analysis and improved genetic algorithm can reduce the amount of calculation and solve these problems effectively.(2)Through the model research,the inter-regional distribution joint model optimizes the distribution route,reduce distribution costs and improve logistics operation level.And last the innovation points of this paper:(1)According to the existing problems of cigarette distribution,we take regionalism through clustering analysis and then consider route optimization among each distribution region with genetic algorithm.(2)While solving the model,we combine the clustering analysis with genetic algorithm to adjust and improve the clustering with the constraints of vehicle capacity and workload.