A Milk Collection Problem with Incompatibility Constraints

Abstract

The milk collection problem is well known in rural areas of the world. This paper considers this real-life problem for an Italian dairy company that collects raw milk from farmers. In our milk collection problem, we address the constraint that some farms are small and inaccessible by large vehicles; moreover, these farmers produce different milk types, and the tank trucks used for transporting the milk have multiple compartments. This generates the additional constraint that at most one milk type can be assigned to a tank compartment. The goal of this paper is to show how operations research techniques helped the company to improve its daily performance. In particular, we present a solution approach based on two mathematical formulations and local search, all embedded within a multiple-restart mechanism. The first mathematical formulation minimizes the number of vehicles to be routed in the network; the second minimizes the tour length. We also discuss experiments we conducted as part of our case study and compare our solution with the process that the company used previously.

Solving the Truck and Trailer Routing Problem with Fuzzy Constraints

“…At this time, there is a growing interest in this problem motivated by its practical relevance to many real world problems such as milk collection 6 , 16 , 17 , 23 , food distribution 14 , 26 or postal delivery 1 among other problems.…”

Vehicle Routing in Multi-Echelon Distribution Systems with Cross-Docking: A Systematic Lexical-Metanarrative Analysis

“…The algorithm is tested on Chao's (2002) instances. The authors adapt the algorithm to a realistic case for milk collection by adding a multiple-restart mechanism to improve the solution (Caramia & Guerriero, 2010). In this case, only www.ccsenet.org/cis…”

Modelling the Collection and Delivery of Sheep Milk: A Tool to Optimise the Logistics Costs of Cheese Factories

“…Moreover, reducing the energy consumption and the related emissions of carbon dioxide in the milk production system represents an important issue to be analysed further, likewise mobility plans that affect strategies and actions [5,6]. Several studies on milk collection have been carried out [7][8][9][10][11][12], while no in-depth studies have yet been made of the problems that are involved in collecting and transporting sheep milk to the cheese factories. As a result, there is a lack of scientific data and little information is available to the cheese factory managers to help them to rationalise the overall transportation system.…”