For modern logistics and supply chain management, efficiently solving Vehicle Routing Problems (VRPs) has become an essential task for organizations to ensure timely deliveries, minimize cost, reduce environmental impact and enhance customer satisfaction. In a typical VRP, a set of customers must be assigned to a fleet of vehicles. The vehicles start and end at a common depot and visit all customers once. There are different variants of VRPs, such as Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) and Vehicle Routing Problem with Profits (VRPP). This presentation first introduces the fundamental aspects of VRPs and their applications. Next, it presents several novel approaches that efficiently solve VRPs with time windows and other constraints. Those new approaches were motivated by real-world use cases and are available in SAS® Optimization.
