A review on integrated scheduling and outbound vehicle routing problems

Production scheduling and vehicle routing are both well-studied problems in literature. A coordinated approach that does not solve these interrelated problems sequentially improves the overall performance. An integrated approach becomes imperative in the current competitive business environment as it helps to save costs and to achieve on-time deliveries. This paper aims to provide a review on integrated scheduling and outbound vehicle routing problems where vehicle routing decisions are explicitly taken into account, including 65 studies since 2010. The various problem characteristics, constraints and solution methods used in the literature are summarized and a general model will be presented. Some suggestions for future research directions are given.