The solution of green location and routing problem using GA and heuristic algorithms: Application in a paint production company

Location and routing problems are one of the most important issues of logistics problems and solved using different approaches. In this study, location and routing problems were solved in a logistic department of a paint firm to increase the productivity and profitability rates. Two different models were proposed. The first model was only related with kms among cities. At the second model, in order to raise awareness on the environment, greenhouse gases that are one of the most important reasons of global warming in the world, was included into the model to reduce CO2 emissions by taking into account the inclination of roads. A hierarchical approach was proposed to solve these problems. At the first level, an assignment to problem (MILP) was solved. As a result, all the cities were assigned to proper storages. At the second level, capacitated routing problem was solved using a heuristic and genetic algorithm. The proposed models were applied in a real life paint factory, in Marmara region, Turkey. The results illustrate that the proposed genetic algorithm produced better result than the classical heuristic method for model 1 and model 2.