Tactical supply chain planning supported on a grasp/MIP heuristic

The current work develops a MIP model for the planning of shipping and disembarking operations in a distribution centre that receives products from a production plant, auxiliary stores and foreign suppliers. The objective is to minimise the costs of the logistic chain. The constraints affecting the operation of the distribution centre are product storage capacity and product handling in cargo reception and unloading docks. Then, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to determine the incidence of key parameters on the operation costs of the system and to identify efficient operation conditions. Finally, a statistical analysis of the solution procedure as applied to the problem allows assessing not only small scale gap and CPU times, but also medium and large scale CPU times.