MIP formulations for perishable fresh foods transportation

Abstract

This paper uses a mixed-integer programming model to solve the distribution problem of perishable food shipments from factories to warehouse and then to destinations. This model focus on adding a limit time which goods can be remained in the warehouse and ignores the transportation cost between factories and warehouse and the cost of warehouse's management. The result shows nearly 62% of the goods should be sent by full-truckload because the fulltruckload can load more and cost less. What's more, the sensitivity analysis further discusses the influence of factory number on total transportation cost.