Assessment of efficiency of assignment of vehicles to tasks in supply chains: a case study of a municipal company

Abstract

The main purpose of the paper is to present criteria of efficiency of assignment of vehicles to tasks at municipal companies, which collect garbage from city inhabitants. Three types of criteria are introduced in the paper: garbage collection time, length of route allocation, and utilization of resources. A two-stage method of optimization of task-routes is proposed. It generates tasks at the first stage and assigns vehicles to the tasks at the second stage. At municipal companies that are responsible for garbage, collection tasks are not pre-defined, and consequently tasks must be designated before the workday. The proposed method is based on genetic algorithm, which is used for the purpose of optimization of the assignment problem. The obtained by the algorithm optimal assignment is compared with assignments obtained in the random way. Criteria of evaluation of efficiency of the obtained route of different mutually conflicting dimensions were introduced, such as is task realization time, distances travelled on particular routes, and number of vehicles involved in garbage collection. Efficiency of the obtained assignment appeared to be sufficiently good.

Keywords:

• supply chain
• genetic algorithm
• municipal service company
• optimisation
• quantitative evaluation