Integrated order batching and vehicle routing operations in grocery retail – A General Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search algorithm

In recent years, established and well-known grocery retailers have increasingly been investing in the business of micro stores and petrol station shops. Supplying these stores with perishable and durable goods leads to noticeable logistics challenges for the retailers. Since the total sales volumes of these shops are typically low and the respective sales areas are very limited, highly frequent deliveries of small sizes are required. These noticeably affect a number of operational planning problems. In the warehouse, the items requested have to be collected in small order sizes. In order to achieve efficient picking operations, orders are therefore combined into larger picking orders, i.e., batches. Afterwards the orders have to be delivered to the stores at high frequency. In practice, all the planning problems mentioned are heavily interconnected due to the short planning horizon.