Differential Evolution Algorithm for Constraint Joint Replenishment Problem

We studied the joint replenishment problem with deterministic resource restriction. A differential evolution (DE) algorithm that uses indirect grouping strategy to solve constrained joint replenishment is presented. The procedure and structure of the DE algorithm is proposed. Extensive computational experiments are performed to compare the performances of the DE algorithm with results of genetic algorithm (GA) and heuristic algorithm CRAND. The experimental results indicate that the DE algorithm performs relative to CRAND and superior to GA.