Publication detail

Distance potential concept and its applications to the design of regional biomass supply chains and solving vehicle routing problems

Li, J.M. Li, A.H. Varbanov, P.S. Liu, Z.Y.

Original Title

Distance potential concept and its applications to the design of regional biomass supply chains and solving vehicle routing problems

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

English

Original Abstract

This paper presents a new concept, distance potential, which is the sum of the distances from the source points to the demand point being considered (for supply chains), or the sum of the distances from the demand (customer) being considered to other demands and the depot (for vehicle routing problems). We also investigate the applications of the new concept to the design of regional biomass supply chains and solving vehicle routing problems. In designing a supply chain, the values of the distance potentials are used to determine the precedence order: the demand point with the largest distance potential value will be satisfied first. While satisfying a demand point, the source point with the shortest distance to the demand will be used first. In solving a vehicle routing problem, the new concept is used to identify the customer which should be included in the first routing to be considered. Then, the network can be designed starting from the customer identified, and based on a few heuristic rules proposed in this paper. The results obtained in this work are comparable to or even better than that obtained in the literature. It is shown that the method proposed is simple and of high computational efficiency.

Keywords

Biomass energy; Distance potential; Supply chain; Vehicle routing problem; Biomass; Computational efficiency; Sales; Supply chains; Vehicle routing; Vehicles; Heuristic rules; ITS applications; Potential values; Regional biomass; Source points; Vehicle Routing Problems; Problem solving

Authors

Li, J.M.; Li, A.H.; Varbanov, P.S.; Liu, Z.Y.

Released

15. 2. 2017

Publisher

Elsevier Ltd

ISBN

0959-6526

Periodical

Journal of Cleaner Production

Number

144

State

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Pages from

426

Pages to

436

Pages count

11

BibTex

@article{BUT146513,
  author="Li, J.M. and Li, A.H. and Varbanov, P.S. and Liu, Z.Y.",
  title="Distance potential concept and its applications to the design of regional biomass supply chains and solving vehicle routing problems",
  journal="Journal of Cleaner Production",
  year="2017",
  number="144",
  pages="426--436",
  doi="10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.166",
  issn="0959-6526"
}