Milk-run routing problem with progress-lane in the collection of automobile parts

Abstract

In recent years, the automotive industry has faced an unprecedented crisis. In particular, the zero-inventory approach, which has been widely pursued by many automobile companies, seems to be impractical in some real production contexts since it requires an inventory of all parts but in low amounts. In this paper, we investigate a new logistics method which collects automobile parts by integrating the progress-lane (P-LANE) into the corresponding vehicle routing problem. We propose a mixed integer programming formulation for this new model, which can simultaneously determines the trip routes to collect automobile parts, as well as the PLANE that each collected part should be assigned to, so as to minimize the total costs of the production and inbound logistics. The comparison with the zero-inventory model shows that the use of the PLANE within the milk-run system could significantly decrease the total costs and also improve the transportation efficiency. To be specific, for small and large size instances, the total costs of the zero-inventory model are about 10% and 30% higher than the ones with PLANE , respectively, which suggests that the periodic part collection model with PLANE could be more appropriate for automobile manufacturing.

Modelling material flow using the Milk run and Kanban systems in the automotive industry

“…The zero-inventory approach, which has been widely adopted by many automobile companies, seems to be impractical in certain real production contexts as it requires an inventory of all parts but in low amounts. A mixed integer programming formulation for a new model that can simultaneously determine the trip routes for collecting automobile parts and minimize total production costs and inbound logistics is shown in (Mao, 2019).…”

Kinematic Model of a Logistic Train with a Double Ackermann Steering System

“…Milk-run ensures that one train is sufficient to transport materials between workstations instead of many direct suppliers assigned to each station [9]. A single logistic train during a single round collects and delivers parts or products [10]. The advantage of a logistic train is that it transports more goods than other intralogistics means of transport for each run [11].…”

Optimization of the Milk-run route for inbound logistics of auto parts under low-carbon economy

“…Ge et al 41 established a multi-vehicle path model with a time window considering carbon emission factors and designed a hybrid GA. There are also some scholars who have studied the Milk-run problem (Mao et al, 42 Xiong et al, 43 Wu et al, 44 Ranjbaran et al, 45 Ranjbaran et al, 46 Wang et al, 47 Baran, 48 Güner et al, 49 Bocewicz et al 50 ). Mao et al 42 proposed a new logistics method for VRP by embedding the progress-lane into it.…”

“…There are also some scholars who have studied the Milk-run problem (Mao et al, 42 Xiong et al, 43 Wu et al, 44 Ranjbaran et al, 45 Ranjbaran et al, 46 Wang et al, 47 Baran, 48 Güner et al, 49 Bocewicz et al 50 ). Mao et al 42 proposed a new logistics method for VRP by embedding the progress-lane into it. Xiong et al 43 constructed a mixed Milk-run logistics model involved second-level suppliers.…”