Solving inventory routing problem with backordering using Artificial Bee Colony

We propose an Artificial Bee Colony to solve Inventory Routing Problem with Backlogging/Backordering (IRPB). The network that we consider is a one-to-many distribution network which consists of a single depot and multiple customers. A fleet of heterogeneous vehicle delivers a single product to fulfill the customers' demands over the planning horizon. Here, we assume that the depot has enough supply to cover all the demand throughout the planning horizon. Backordering is considered only when it is more economical or when there is insufficient vehicle capacity. The objective of IRPB is to find solutions such that inventory cost, backorder cost and transportation cost is optimal resulting in the minimization of the overall total cost. Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) proposed is modified from [10] where we embed inventory information and also incorporate the inventory updating mechanism to handle both inventory and backorder. We also apply 2-opt* as local search to improve the routing and the algorithm is tested on a set of benchmark problems.