Roteirização de veículos para o abastecimento de linhas de produção.

Abstract

This work studies the routing of vehicles for material delivery to assembly lines, which consists of a generalization of the classic Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). In this problem, parts are stored in central depot called supermarket and from where they are distributed to points of use placed along the production line. Production rate in the assembly line is considered constant, which means that parts are delivered to points of use periodically. A fleet of tow cars transfers the boxes or containers of parts using wheeled towed carts. The objective of this problem is to route the fleet of the tow cars maximizing their utilization and fulfilling the assembly line demand for parts. This problem is common to several companies and has direct impacts in material handling costs. The theme is poorly explored in routing studies and many companies use operator experience to configure tow cars routes. This work proposes a heuristic based on insertion methods to find a solution for the problem. The heuristic was applied to a real problem and resulted in the reduction of the number of routes when compared to former operator solution.