Integrated optimisation of delivery and installation operations in home appliance last-mile logistics
研究了家电物流中配送与安装的集成优化问题，考虑时间间隔和技能要求，设计了改进遗传算法求解，为管理者提供两种服务模式的比较。
Delivery followed by installation is the standard service process for most home appliances, like air conditioners and wall-mounted televisions. Unlike typical delivery services that focus solely on transporting goods to customers’ homes, customer services in home appliance logistics end with the completion of installation, rather than only delivery. Therefore, it is essential for home appliance companies to improve the efficiency of both delivery and installation processes. To address this challenge, we investigate an integrated delivery and installation optimisation problem that considers the allowable time gap between delivery and installation, as well as the skill requirements for different installation operations. First, we develop a mixed integer programming model to formulate the problem, serving as a baseline for evaluating algorithms. Since the problem involves two interrelated routing issues, we then design an improved genetic algorithm with local search to solve it efficiently. Specifically, the algorithm uses customer permutation as its encoding scheme and employs a greedy insertion method for decoding, allowing it to determine the delivery and installation routes simultaneously. Numerical experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. Furthermore, we compare two service models, the sequential and simultaneous models, to provide some insights for managers in home appliances logistics.