Minimization of logistic costs with given frequencies

We study the problem of shipping products from one origin to several destinations, when a given set of possible shipping frequencies is available. The objective of the problem is the minimization of the transportation and inventory costs. We present different heuristic algorithms and test them on a set of randomly generated problem instances. The heuristics are based upon the idea of solving, in a first phase, single link problems, and of locally improving the solution in subsequent phases. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.