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ERIC Number: EJ1356937
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Sep
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1532-0545
Available Date: N/A
Getting beyond the First Result of Solving a Vehicle Routing Problem
Wellington, John F.; Lewis, Stephen A.
INFORMS Transactions on Education, v22 n1 p9-27 Sep 2021
The simple vehicle routing problem (VRP) is a common topic of discussion in introductory operations research/management science courses. The VRP can be framed in a variety of ways, and it can be difficult to solve to optimality. For solution purposes, introductory textbooks demonstrate how Excel's Evolutionary Solver (ES) add-in produces a routing. The ES utilizes a genetic algorithm with a heuristic stopping rule to produce a routing that is not guaranteed to be optimal. Beyond pointing out that search controls, such as maximum execution time, may be extended and followed by restart(s) of ES, textbook treatments do not offer alternative ways to continue the search for a possibly better routing. In this paper, a suite of ways is presented in which students may investigate beyond what ES produces or any other optimality-uncertain VRP solution method. The suite includes perturbation methods and other ways that function within an Excel spreadsheet environment that is popular with students and textbook writers. Because there is no demonstrable feature that confirms optimality, the student problem Solver must settle for a 'best found' result as unsettling as it may be. The incertitude is addressed.
Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS). 5521 Research Park Drive Suite 200, Catonsville, Maryland 21228. Tel: 800-446-3676; Tel: 443-757-3500; Fax: 443-757-3515; e-mail: informs@informs.org; Web site: https://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/ited
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A