Research On Y Company’s Inventory-Routing Problem Under Random Demand

With the improvement of people’s living standards and the complexity of consumer market,the demand becomes more and more difficult to predict,higher requirements are put forward for the logistics level of enterprises,so that they can respond quickly in the face of unpredictable market demand and meet customer needs to the greatest extent.Therefore,the inventory routing problem,as a research that can solve the two logistics problems of inventory and transportation at the same time,has attracted a lot of attention.The inventory routing problem is a joint optimization problem that integrates inventory management,vehicle routing,and transportation decisions.It is well known that inventory and routing are two logistics activities that have an inverse relationship.High-frequency and small-batch transportation can reduce inventory costs,which is not conducive to the control of transportation costs,on the contrary,low-frequency and highvolume transportation can reduce transportation costs,but it is not conducive to the control of inventory costs.Therefore,only managing inventory or planning transportation routes alone will reduce the single cost of certain aspects,but it is not conducive to reduce overall supply chain costs.In the inventory routing problem,the inventory strategy and the distribution routing are jointly optimized in order to find the optimal management decision to achieve the purpose of reducing the overall cost.This paper takes the secondary supply chain system composed of the distribution center and retailers in Beijing area of the Y company as the research object.Based on the analysis of the current distribution routes and inventory management of the Y company,this paper points out that the Y company has some shortcomings such as low degree of specialization,single consideration and chaotic pattern of management.This paper also points out that the current replenishment strategy of Y company is relatively mechanical and lacks scientific decision-making,which has led to the high logistics cost of Y company.Therefore,based on the analysis of company Y’s distribution and inventory management mode,this paper puts forward the optimization goal of company Y for existing problems,that is,to jointly optimize the inventory-routing problem instead of making separate decisions.This paper combined the random characteristics of market demand,established the inventory-routing problem model under random demand,constructed the optimization model with the minimum total cost including transportation cost,inventory cost,out-of-stock cost and time window penalty.The artificial bee colony algorithm based on the double-layer coding rule is used to solve the problem,and the actual data of company Y is brought in to obtain the distribution route,actual distribution volume and cost details in the three distribution cycles.Finally,from the two aspects of total transportation mileage and total cost,the results before and after optimization are analyzed and compared.The results show that after optimization,the total transportation mileage is saved by about 56%,and the total cost is reduced by about 31%,which proves the validity of the model and algorithm proposed in this paper.Finally,this paper can draw a conclusion that the joint consideration of inventory and route is beneficial to Y company’s control of logistics costs in the future,this conclusion also can provide reference for Y company’s future operations.This article includes 20 figures,13 tables,and 52 references.