Towards a multiobjective evolutionary approach to inventory and routing management in a retail chain

Abstract

In this work we address the problem of inventory and routing management in a retail chain. This involves the minimisation of two contradicting objectives, inventory holding costs and transportation costs, but which can be compounded in to a single one, the global costs. In previous work we addressed this using a single objective evolutionary algorithm but the duality inherent in the problem prompts us to consider a multiobjective approach; the aim is to determine what advantages each can bring. A number of experiments are carried out on several simulated and one real retail chain.