An iterated local search heuristic for the logistics network design problem with single assignment

In the logistics network design problem (LNDP), decisions must be made regarding the selection of suppliers, the location of plants and warehouses, the assignment of activities to these facilities, and the flows of raw materials and finished products in the network. This article introduces an iterated local search (ILS) heuristic for the LNDP variant arising when each raw material should be supplied by a unique supplier, and each finished product should be produced and distributed by a unique plant and a unique warehouse, respectively. The ILS heuristic exploits the combinatorial nature of the problem and relies on simple moves combined within a descent algorithm. Several perturbation operators are used to allow a broad exploration of the solution space. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated on randomly generated instances, and the solutions are compared with lower bounds computed by solving the LP relaxation of the problem.