Raw material flow optimization as a capacitated vehicle routing problem: A visual benchmarking approach for sustainable manufacturing

Optimisation problem concerning material flows, to increase the efficiency while reducing relative resource consumption is one of the most pressing problems today. The focus point of this study is to propose a new visual benchmarking approach to select the best material-flow path from the depot to the production lines, referring to the well-known Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP). An example industrial case study is considered to this aim. Two different solution techniques were adopted (namely Mixed Integer Linear Programming and the Ant Colony Optimization) in searching optimal solutions to the CVRP. The visual benchmarking proposed, based on the persistent homology approach, allowed to support the comparison of the optimal solutions based on the entropy of the output in different scenarios. Finally, based on the non-standard measurements of Crossing Length Percentage (CLP), the visual benchmarking procedure makes it possible to find the most practical and applicable solution to CVRP by considering the visual attractiveness and the quality of the routes.