Consistent Inventory Routing with Split Deliveries

In this paper, we present a matheuristic solution technique to solve a real world problem related to the distribution and inventory management of beer from breweries to restaurants and bars. Consistency in delivery times is an important requirement for this application. Other problem characteristics are the possibility of split deliveries and the existence of time windows. Hence, the problem aims to minimize costs related to routing, consistency, inventory holding stock-out. We develop an adaptive large neighborhood search method and we propose different destroy and repair operators. The method is tested using a benchmark data set and compared to optimal solutions on small test instances.