Abstract
One of the elements of the modern trade and services market is a business chain solution (chain store/retail chain). An example of a business chain is, e.g., a restaurant chain, where each restaurant in the chain has the same decor, organization, menu, and delivery method. Although such solutions have been known for decades, the rapid development of IT technology, the widespread access to the Internet as well as the development of mobile technologies have changed and modernized their formula. Many customers place orders remotely with the option of delivery to their door. This method of ordering and fulfilling orders is becoming more and more popular and ever more common in the recent period due to the pandemic and the resulting restrictions and limitations on the functioning of trade and services. The following key questions arise in relation to customer order processing for chain business managers: How to allocate individual customer orders to selected branches so that the cost of their processing (production and delivery) is the lowest?, How to deliver on time?, etc. To answer these questions, a decision support model has been developed, which combines routing, allocation and planning problems for restaurant/store chains. Two ways to implement the model have been proposed. The first one uses the methods of mathematical modeling and programming, and the other, which is a proprietary approach that integrates the mechanisms of evolution (specialized representations, repair mechanisms, genetic operators, etc.), uses constraint logic programming and dedicated heuristics. In addition, procedures for constraint handling and presolving have been developed.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Neurocomputing |
| Volume | 482 |
| Pages (from-to) | 298-309 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISSN | 0925-2312 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Nielsen Izabela is Professor at the Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University in Denmark. She was born December 22, 1977 in Poland. She gained an M.Sc., Eng. at the Faculty of Management and Production Engineering, Opole University of Technology in 2001. In 2005 she obtained her Ph.D. with honors in the application of constraint logic programming techniques in production flow planning from the Faculty of Production Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology. In 2006 she obtained an award for her research work from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. Her research is primarily in the areas of planning, scheduling and optimization problems. She has a special emphasis on automated manufacturing, transportation, and production systems. She has published over 140 articles in journals, books and conferences. She is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Industrial Engineering: Theory, Applications and Practice and European Journal of Industrial Engineering. Furthermore, she is an editorial board member of several reputed journals including the International Journal of Advanced Logistics and International Journal: Production & Manufacturing Research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
Keywords
- Business chain
- Constraint handling procedure
- Constraint logic programming
- Decision support
- Dedicated genetic algorithm
- Hybrid approach
- Mathematical programming