An optimization approach for designing routes in metrological control services: a case study

Abstract

This paper is the first to tackle the problem of designing routes in service companies that are responsible for the metrological control of measuring equipments at customer sites. This real-world problem belongs to the well-known Rich Vehicle Routing Problems which combine multiple attributes that distinguish them from traditional vehicle routing problems. The attributes include fixed heterogeneous fleet of vehicles, time windows for customers and depot, resource synchronization between tours, driver-customer and vehicle-customer constraints, customer priorities and unserved customers. This routing and scheduling problem is modeled with linear programming techniques and solved by a variable neighborhood descent metaheuristic based on a tabu search algorithm with a holding list. A real-life case study faced by a company in the region of Andalusia (Spain) is also presented in this work. The performance of the metaheuristic is compared with the literature for the standard fixed heterogeneous vehicle routing problem. Results obtained on a real case instance improve the solutions implemented by the company.