Route optimization through integration of different activities at C-mark Eurofins

This research was conducted at C-Mark Eurofins, a company specialized in clean water. The goal of this research is to determine if and how the combination of check valve and control measure activities at C-Mark could decrease costs. The problem is classified as a Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem with Time Windows (MDVRPTW). A modified version of the iterated local search (ILS) meta-heuristic, reduced local search (RLS), was created. Through experiments, the perturbation strength, number of iterations, number of swaps, and number of moves were determined. Due to the excessive run time of the ILS, the RLS was ultimately chosen to generate the results. The results show that when the tasks are combined, the total duration and total distance decrease; however, the total cost increased due to the higher salary costs. When evaluating the efficiency gain due to the decrease in total duration, it is still better to keep the tasks separated.