Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution

This paper studies a maritime inventory routing problem (MIRP) faced by fish feed suppliers responsible for distributing different types of fish feed from one or several production facilities to a number of fish farms located at sea with a given heterogeneous fleet of specialized vessels. The feed s...

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Main Authors: Anders Bjelland, Aksel Borgen, Sjur Wold, Kjetil Fagerholt, Dimitri J. Papageorgiou, Kristian Thun, Simen Tung Vadseth
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-12-01
Series:Maritime Transport Research
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666822X25000115
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author Anders Bjelland
Aksel Borgen
Sjur Wold
Kjetil Fagerholt
Dimitri J. Papageorgiou
Kristian Thun
Simen Tung Vadseth
author_facet Anders Bjelland
Aksel Borgen
Sjur Wold
Kjetil Fagerholt
Dimitri J. Papageorgiou
Kristian Thun
Simen Tung Vadseth
author_sort Anders Bjelland
collection DOAJ
description This paper studies a maritime inventory routing problem (MIRP) faced by fish feed suppliers responsible for distributing different types of fish feed from one or several production facilities to a number of fish farms located at sea with a given heterogeneous fleet of specialized vessels. The feed supplier needs to maintain sufficient inventory levels at the farms at all times while minimizing the distribution costs. We propose a discrete-time mixed-integer programming (MIP) model for the fish feed MIRP. Since a commercial MIP-solver can only solve small problem instances, we also propose a matheuristic for solving real-life instances. The matheuristic employs a memetic algorithm, a metaheuristic combining a genetic algorithm with local search to decide how to route the vessels, coupled with a linear program for assigning quantities along the vessel routes. We perform a computational study on a number of realistic test instances generated using data from one of Norway’s largest fish feed suppliers. We show that the matheuristic produces reasonable solutions where the commercial MIP-solver fails, and as such can provide valuable decision support.
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institution Kabale University
issn 2666-822X
language English
publishDate 2025-12-01
publisher Elsevier
record_format Article
series Maritime Transport Research
spelling doaj-art-e01d3c7e7a83470db26570c6d09c7f192025-08-20T03:36:42ZengElsevierMaritime Transport Research2666-822X2025-12-01910013910.1016/j.martra.2025.100139Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distributionAnders Bjelland0Aksel Borgen1Sjur Wold2Kjetil Fagerholt3Dimitri J. Papageorgiou4Kristian Thun5Simen Tung Vadseth6Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NorwayDepartment of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NorwayDepartment of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NorwayDepartment of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway; SINTEF Ocean, Norway; Corresponding author at: Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway.ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Company, USASINTEF Ocean, NorwayDepartment of Industrial Economics and Technology Management, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), NorwayThis paper studies a maritime inventory routing problem (MIRP) faced by fish feed suppliers responsible for distributing different types of fish feed from one or several production facilities to a number of fish farms located at sea with a given heterogeneous fleet of specialized vessels. The feed supplier needs to maintain sufficient inventory levels at the farms at all times while minimizing the distribution costs. We propose a discrete-time mixed-integer programming (MIP) model for the fish feed MIRP. Since a commercial MIP-solver can only solve small problem instances, we also propose a matheuristic for solving real-life instances. The matheuristic employs a memetic algorithm, a metaheuristic combining a genetic algorithm with local search to decide how to route the vessels, coupled with a linear program for assigning quantities along the vessel routes. We perform a computational study on a number of realistic test instances generated using data from one of Norway’s largest fish feed suppliers. We show that the matheuristic produces reasonable solutions where the commercial MIP-solver fails, and as such can provide valuable decision support.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666822X25000115Maritime inventory routingMixed integer programmingApplicationFish feed distributionMatheuristic
spellingShingle Anders Bjelland
Aksel Borgen
Sjur Wold
Kjetil Fagerholt
Dimitri J. Papageorgiou
Kristian Thun
Simen Tung Vadseth
Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
Maritime Transport Research
Maritime inventory routing
Mixed integer programming
Application
Fish feed distribution
Matheuristic
title Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
title_full Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
title_fullStr Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
title_full_unstemmed Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
title_short Maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
title_sort maritime inventory routing with an application to fish feed distribution
topic Maritime inventory routing
Mixed integer programming
Application
Fish feed distribution
Matheuristic
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666822X25000115
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AT dimitrijpapageorgiou maritimeinventoryroutingwithanapplicationtofishfeeddistribution
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