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Network design for time‐constrained delivery
Author(s) -
Chen Hui,
Campbell Ann Melissa,
Thomas Barrett W.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
naval research logistics (nrl)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1520-6750
pISSN - 0894-069X
DOI - 10.1002/nav.20302
Subject(s) - exploit , computer science , focus (optics) , tree (set theory) , tree network , operations research , network planning and design , mathematical optimization , time complexity , computer security , computer network , mathematics , mathematical analysis , physics , algorithm , optics
To meet customer demand, delivery companies are offering an increasing number of time‐definite services. In this article, we examine the strategic design of delivery networks which can efficiently provide these services. Because of the high cost of direct connections, we focus on tree‐structured networks. As it may not be possible to identify a tree‐structured network that satisfies all of the delivery guarantees, we allow these guarantees to be violated but seek to minimize the sum of the violations. We establish the complexity of the problem and exploit an empirically identified solution structure to create new neighborhoods which improve solution values over more general neighborhood structures. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008