IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/proeco/v119y2009i1p46-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Designing salespeople's routes with multiple visits of customers: A case study

Author

Listed:
  • Ferrer, Laia
  • Pastor, Rafael
  • García-Villoria, Alberto

Abstract

In this paper, we present a procedure for designing the routes for the salespeople that work for the commercial network of a home video company. The commercial area is divided into different zones and each salesperson is assigned to one of them, working and having independent routes from the others. The company wanted to generate salespeople's routes for a commercial cycle, which is usually one month long. The commercial cycle has the following main features: each customer has to be visited a specific number of times (from 1 to 5); and two-day routes are possible when the customers are located far from the salesperson's residence. After the set of routes is generated, each salesperson assigns his/her own routes to each working day, taking into account local holidays, national meetings and other unforeseen events. The objective function is to minimize the weighted sum of the travel time plus overtime penalties. In less than one month, an ad hoc procedure was designed, coded and calibrated. The company has qualified the routes as very satisfactory and the tool is now used by the commercial network management to: reassign customers, assign new customers and vary the number of visits to the customers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ferrer, Laia & Pastor, Rafael & García-Villoria, Alberto, 2009. "Designing salespeople's routes with multiple visits of customers: A case study," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 46-54, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:119:y:2009:i:1:p:46-54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925-5273(09)00028-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Baptista, Susana & Oliveira, Rui Carvalho & Zuquete, Eduardo, 2002. "A period vehicle routing case study," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(2), pages 220-229, June.
    2. Francis, Peter & Smilowitz, Karen, 2006. "Modeling techniques for periodic vehicle routing problems," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 40(10), pages 872-884, December.
    3. Salhi, S. & Sari, M., 1997. "A multi-level composite heuristic for the multi-depot vehicle fleet mix problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 95-112, November.
    4. G. Clarke & J. W. Wright, 1964. "Scheduling of Vehicles from a Central Depot to a Number of Delivery Points," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(4), pages 568-581, August.
    5. Toth, Paolo & Vigo, Daniele, 1999. "A heuristic algorithm for the symmetric and asymmetric vehicle routing problems with backhauls," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 113(3), pages 528-543, March.
    6. Wasner, Michael & Zapfel, Gunther, 2004. "An integrated multi-depot hub-location vehicle routing model for network planning of parcel service," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(3), pages 403-419, August.
    7. Jin, Mingzhou & Liu, Kai & Bowden, Royce O., 2007. "A two-stage algorithm with valid inequalities for the split delivery vehicle routing problem," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 228-242, January.
    8. Hong, Sung-Chul & Park, Yang-Byung, 1999. "A heuristic for bi-objective vehicle routing with time window constraints," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(3), pages 249-258, September.
    9. C. Archetti & M. G. Speranza & A. Hertz, 2006. "A Tabu Search Algorithm for the Split Delivery Vehicle Routing Problem," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 40(1), pages 64-73, February.
    10. Nagy, Gabor & Salhi, Said, 2005. "Heuristic algorithms for single and multiple depot vehicle routing problems with pickups and deliveries," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 162(1), pages 126-141, April.
    11. Laporte, Gilbert, 1992. "The vehicle routing problem: An overview of exact and approximate algorithms," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 345-358, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ceranoglu, Ahmet N. & Duman, Ekrem, 2013. "VRP12 (vehicle routing problem with distances one and two) with side constraints," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 461-467.
    2. Oscar Dominguez & Angel A. Juan & Barry Barrios & Javier Faulin & Alba Agustin, 2016. "Using biased randomization for solving the two-dimensional loading vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous fleet," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 236(2), pages 383-404, January.
    3. Dominguez, Oscar & Guimarans, Daniel & Juan, Angel A. & de la Nuez, Ignacio, 2016. "A Biased-Randomised Large Neighbourhood Search for the two-dimensional Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 255(2), pages 442-462.
    4. Kritikos, Manolis N. & Ioannou, George, 2010. "The balanced cargo vehicle routing problem with time windows," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 42-51, January.
    5. Maria João Santos & Pedro Amorim & Alexandra Marques & Ana Carvalho & Ana Póvoa, 2020. "The vehicle routing problem with backhauls towards a sustainability perspective: a review," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 28(2), pages 358-401, July.
    6. Salhi, Said & Wassan, Niaz & Hajarat, Mutaz, 2013. "The Fleet Size and Mix Vehicle Routing Problem with Backhauls: Formulation and Set Partitioning-based Heuristics," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 22-35.
    7. Tsirimpas, P. & Tatarakis, A. & Minis, I. & Kyriakidis, E.G., 2008. "Single vehicle routing with a predefined customer sequence and multiple depot returns," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 187(2), pages 483-495, June.
    8. Shukla, Nagesh & Choudhary, A.K. & Prakash, P.K.S. & Fernandes, K.J. & Tiwari, M.K., 2013. "Algorithm portfolios for logistics optimization considering stochastic demands and mobility allowance," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(1), pages 146-166.
    9. Ganesh, K. & Narendran, T.T., 2007. "CLOVES: A cluster-and-search heuristic to solve the vehicle routing problem with delivery and pick-up," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 178(3), pages 699-717, May.
    10. Tan, K.C. & Chew, Y.H. & Lee, L.H., 2006. "A hybrid multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for solving truck and trailer vehicle routing problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 172(3), pages 855-885, August.
    11. Berbotto, Leonardo & García, Sergio & Nogales, Francisco J., 2011. "A vehicle routing model with split delivery and stop nodes," DES - Working Papers. Statistics and Econometrics. WS ws110906, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Estadística.
    12. Oscar Dominguez & Angel Juan & Barry Barrios & Javier Faulin & Alba Agustin, 2016. "Using biased randomization for solving the two-dimensional loading vehicle routing problem with heterogeneous fleet," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 236(2), pages 383-404, January.
    13. N Wassan, 2007. "Reactive tabu adaptive memory programming search for the vehicle routing problem with backhauls," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(12), pages 1630-1641, December.
    14. Leonardo Berbotto & Sergio García & Francisco Nogales, 2014. "A Randomized Granular Tabu Search heuristic for the split delivery vehicle routing problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 222(1), pages 153-173, November.
    15. Qiuping Ni & Yuanxiang Tang, 2023. "A Bibliometric Visualized Analysis and Classification of Vehicle Routing Problem Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-37, April.
    16. Aderemi Oluyinka Adewumi & Olawale Joshua Adeleke, 2018. "A survey of recent advances in vehicle routing problems," International Journal of System Assurance Engineering and Management, Springer;The Society for Reliability, Engineering Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM),India, and Division of Operation and Maintenance, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden, vol. 9(1), pages 155-172, February.
    17. Liu, Ran & Jiang, Zhibin, 2012. "The close–open mixed vehicle routing problem," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 220(2), pages 349-360.
    18. Zäpfel, Günther & Bögl, Michael, 2008. "Multi-period vehicle routing and crew scheduling with outsourcing options," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 980-996, June.
    19. Jeffrey W. Ohlmann & Michael J. Fry & Barrett W. Thomas, 2008. "Route Design for Lean Production Systems," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 42(3), pages 352-370, August.
    20. Pandelis, D.G. & Karamatsoukis, C.C. & Kyriakidis, E.G., 2013. "Finite and infinite-horizon single vehicle routing problems with a predefined customer sequence and pickup and delivery," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 231(3), pages 577-586.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:proeco:v:119:y:2009:i:1:p:46-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.