A memetic algorithm with population management for a production-distribution problem
Résumé
This paper studies an NP-hard multi-period production-distribution problem to minimize the sum of three costs: production setups, inventories and distribution. This problem is solved by a very recent form of metaheuristic called Memetic Algorithm with Population Management (MA|PM). Contrary to classical ***two-phase methods (production planning followed by vehicle routing in each period), the algorithm simultaneously tackles production and distribution decisions. It is compared with a two-phase heuristic and a Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP) on 90 randomly generated instances with 50, 100 or 200 customers and 20 periods. The significant savings obtained compared to the two other methods confirm both the interest of integrating production and distribution decisions and of using the MA|PM template.