Last Mile Delivery From Multiple Depots in Python
<p>With the rapid growth of online shopping, companies are facing ever-increasing demands for speedy, low-cost delivery. <em>Last mile delivery</em> refers to the final stage of the supply chain, where packages are delivered from a depot to the customer’s doorstep. This is a complex tactical problem that involves jointly determining how to assign packages to trucks and how to route the trucks to customers. It is also a very expensive problem, with <a href="https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/last-mile-delivery-shipping-explained/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">recent estimates</a> placing last mile delivery at 53% of the total shipping cost. This underscores the need to generate efficient delivery plans.</p>
<p>The classic form of this problem involves a single depot (usually a warehouse) from which all trucks are loaded and sent out on their deliveries. A more complex version involves multiple depots in close proximity to one another — for example, when retail chains deliver from store locations. In this case, a given customer may be served by more than one depot, so the company must also determine which depots will ship to which customers. Sometimes no single depot will have all the items in a customer’s order available, requiring the order to be split among multiple depots.</p>
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