Multi-depot vehicle routing problem with time windows considering delivery and installation vehicles

• We extend MDVRPTW to include two types of vehicles for delivery and installation.
• Dual time windows: the time window and the customer service level are considered.
• We minimize the total relevant costs of depots, vehicles, transportation, and labors.
• We develop a heuristic algorithm and a hybrid genetic algorithm for the MDVRPTW.
• Synchronized vehicles? schedule considering delivery and installation is proposed.

We extend the multi-depot vehicle routing problem with time windows (MDVRPTW), a practical and challenging problem in logistics and supply chain management, to a study of service vehicles used for delivery and installation of electronics. This study shows that MDVRPTW results can be used to minimize fixed costs of the depots and the delivery and installation vehicles as well as expenses related to travel distances and labor. Along with a mixed integer programming model, we develop a heuristic and a genetic algorithm to identify a near-optimal solution. Computational results demonstrate that the proposed algorithms can efficiently be used to solve relatively large problems.