A constraint programming approach to designing a newspaper distribution system

This paper presents a constraint programming approach using a modeling language and CP optimizer to aid in the coordination of the production and delivery of multi-product newspapers to bulk delivery locations. The distribution problem is modeled as an open vehicle routing problem with time windows and zoning constraints. The use of a high level modeling language eliminates the need to develop custom low-level computer codes to solve the problem. The methodology is applied to the newspaper production and distribution problem in a major metropolitan area. Computational results are presented and show significant improvement relative to a previous metaheuristic approach using tabu search.