Cold Chain Routing for Product Freshness and Low Carbon Emissions: A Target-Oriented Robust Optimization Approach

38 Pages Posted: 24 Apr 2024

See all articles by Linjing Zhang

Linjing Zhang

Southeast University

Yi Ding

Southeast University

Yong-Hong Kuo

The University of Hong Kong - Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Lianmin Zhang

Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data; Nanjing University

Date Written: April 22, 2024

Abstract

While customers’ demands for fresh products continue to rise, inefficient logistics in cold chains has led to significant food waste and compromised product quality. In addition, logistics companies face the challenge of reducing costs and carbon emissions while ensuring product freshness. Our paper proposes a target-oriented framework utilizing an underperformance riskiness index to optimize cold chain routing decisions. The objective of the problem is to minimize the risk of failing to meet the target freshness level while accounting for cost and carbon emission limits. To address the complexity of stochastic arrival times, a linear decision rule is adopted. The problem’s robust counterpart is reformulated as a mixed-integer linear programming model. A Benders decomposition approach is developed to solve the problem efficiently. Computational experiments
are conducted on realistic instances to assess the performance of our approach, with a comparative analysis with two benchmark models. The experimental results demonstrate that our target-oriented robust optimization framework produces high-quality solutions, effectively reducing the chance and magnitude of violating the target freshness level while maintaining relatively low costs and carbon emissions.

Keywords: Cold chain routing, Freshness, Underperformance riskiness index, distributionally robust optimization, Benders decomposition

Suggested Citation

Zhang, Linjing and Ding, Yi and Kuo, Yong-Hong and Zhang, Lianmin, Cold Chain Routing for Product Freshness and Low Carbon Emissions: A Target-Oriented Robust Optimization Approach (April 22, 2024). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4802417 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4802417

Linjing Zhang (Contact Author)

Southeast University ( email )

Sipailou 2#
Nanjing, Jiangsu Province 210096
China

Yi Ding

Southeast University ( email )

Banani, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Dhaka
Bangladesh

Yong-Hong Kuo

The University of Hong Kong - Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering ( email )

8/F Haking Wong Building
Pokfulam Road
Hong Kong
China

Lianmin Zhang

Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data ( email )

Nanjing University ( email )

Nanjing, Jiangsu 210093
China

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