Application of Combinatorial Optimization in Logistics

Combinatorial optimization problems are becoming more and more important as its applications take place in many aspects, especially in logistics which planning and management of warehouse are mostly based on. Using exhaustive search for a precise solution is likely not preferable, since the complexity and execution time increases as factorial of input. So people attempt to look for a method which could provide a reasonably good solution with fast response, which heuristic and metaheuristic approaches are superior. In this paper, we will discuss briefly about some common heuristic and metaheuristic ones, as well as their principles and how they are applied to seek the optimal routes in a predefined graph. Then we come to a realistic application in logistics that AGVs have to allocate the best routes and order to achieve the tasks given, by simulation in MATLAB GUI program.