Abstract
A new large-scale optimization problem in the field of transportation engineering is introduced in this paper as step fixed-charge solid transportation problem, where products are sent from sources to destinations by some conveyances in existence of both unit and step fixed-charges. The problem has many real-world applications in transportation area. As a moderate-sized instance of this problem becomes intractable for general-purpose solvers, we propose a dual decomposition approach, which is based on a Lagrangian relaxation and capable of tackling larger instances. The Lagrangian approach is also equipped with a Lagrangian heuristic to produce upper bounds. Our extensive numerical experiments show that the approach produces high-quality solutions in very reasonable time when compared with general-purpose solvers such as CPLEX. The applicability of the step fixed-charge solid transportation problem is also shown by a real-life example of furniture production company.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 1–21 |
Number of pages | 22 |
Journal | Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics |
Early online date | 31 Oct 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Early online - 31 Oct 2015 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- transportation problem
- large-scale problem
- mathematical model
- Lagrangian relaxation
- heuristic