In recent years, much attention and many papers have been devoted to general heuristics techniques, known as metaheuristics, that are applicable, in particular, to solve hard combinatorial optimization problems. There are a huge amount of combinatorial optimization problems in all sectors of...

This paper discusses the use of probabilistic or randomized algorithms for solving vehicle routing problems with non-smooth objective functions. Our approach employs non-uniform probability distributions to add a biased random behavior to the well-known savings heuristic. By doing so, a large...

From a managerial point of view, the more efficient, simple, and parameter-free (ESP) an algorithm is, the more likely it will be used in practice for solving real-life problems. Following this principle, an ESP algorithm for solving the Permutation Flowshop Sequencing Problem (PFSP) is proposed...

In this paper we develop two models for an inventory system in which the distributor manages the inventory at the retailers location. These type of systems correspond to the Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) systems described ib the literature. These systems are very common in many different types...

Iterated Local Search has many of the desirable features of a metaheuristic: it is simple, easy to implement, robust, and highly effective. The essential idea of Iterated Local Search lies in focusing the search not on the full space of solutions but on a smaller subspace defined by the...

From a managerial point of view, the more effcient, simple, and parameter-free (ESP) an algorithm is, the more likely it will be used in practice for solving real-life problems. Following this principle, an ESP algorithm for solving the Permutation Flowshop Sequencing Problem (PFSP) is proposed...