Path finding with stowage planning consideration in a mixed pickup-delivery and specified-node network

This paper considers the mixed pickup-delivery shortest path problem with specified nodes and stowage planning (mixed-PDSPSNSP), which combines path finding and three-dimensional stowage planning. The mixed-PDSPSNSP appears in many operational problems in various industries. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is no study in the literature for such a problem. The mixed-PDSPSNSP is NP-hard. Our proposed solution algorithm is shown to be effective and efficient when applied to a real-life mixed-PDSPSNSP.