Multi-heuristics Based Genetic Algorithm
for Solving Maritime Inventory Routing Problem
Nurhadi Siswanto, Daryl Essam, Ruhul Sarker
School of Engineering and Information Technology,
University of New South Wales at Australian Defense Force Academy (UNSW@ADFA) Canberra, Australia
n.siswanto@adfa.edu.au, d.essam@adfa.edu.au, r.sarker@adfa.edu.au
This paper discusses a multi-heuristics based Genetic
Algorithm (GA) to solve maritime inventory routing
problems (mIRP). The problem is to transport multiple oil
products from a production facility to some consumption
ports by using several heterogeneous ships with undedicated
compartments. The objective of the problem is to find a
minimum cost solution, while satisfying a number of
technical and physical constraints, within a given planning
horizon. The strategies to assign a ship are transformed to a
set of heuristic combinations represented by a chromosome.
At every iteration a number of chromosomes are evaluated
and evolved within a GA framework. The approach has been
applied on several test cases. The multi-heuristic results
show that the best optimum values of the case problems are
not different from the ones from a MILP method solved
using Lingo, but they do so with a significant decrease in
computation time.
Keywords – Heuristics, scheduling, inventory routing
I. INTRODUCTION
Heuristics have become a popular tool for solving
various scheduling problems because of its superiority in
solving problems within a reasonable time. However, as
stated by Cowling [9] and Chakhlevitch [2], heuristics
may perform well for certain problem instances, but it is
not guarantee to have good results when applied to a
different instance of the problems. This problem specific
method is thus hard to implement for a problem that has
many variations, such as inventory routing problems as
reported in [13].
Many papers have been proposed to overcome this
problem specific limitation. Cowling et.al [9] has
introduced a concept of hyper heuristics and has applied
the method in several scheduling problems [9, 10]. That
method used heuristics to choose a lower level of
heuristics. An extensive survey of the development of this
method can be seen in [10].
This paper proposes to use an indirect method
involving heuristics referred to a multi-heuristics based
genetic algorithm. Our approach can be classified as a
hyper-heuristic as defined in [9]. It consists of several
heuristic combinations represented by a chromosome that
is evaluated and evolved within a GA framework. As far
as we know, our approach is the first to combine GA and
multiple heuristics to solve maritime inventory routing
problems.
In this paper, we present a maritime inventory routing
and scheduling problem. This problem is a class of
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inventory routing problem (IRP) that uses ships to
distribute products. Many papers have discussed this
problem, for example a single product model in [3, 4, 5],
and multiple non-intermixable products with dedicated
compartments in [1, 11]. An extensive survey on maritime
scheduling research and models is given in [6, 7].
This paper extends the problem in [1, 11] to have an
undedicated compartment that can hold a desired product,
similar to the recent paper in [8]. However, in our model
we assume that ships may visit up to two ports in one
assignment, instead of one port in [8]. Moreover, they
developed a heuristic to construct a solution, but the
solution given depends on the parameters generated in a
GA. They used a GA to modify the parameters in an
objective function so as to have different scenarios. Their
domain is in the solution space, while ours is in the
solution methods.
The objective of this paper is to present a new variant
and method for solving maritime inventory routing
problems. The outline of this paper is described as
follows: section 2 describes the description of the
problem. Next, section 3 considers the design of a multi
heuristics based genetic algorithm. Then, section 4
reports the computational results of the case problems.
Finally, the last section gives some concluding remarks.
II. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
The problem discussed in this paper is motivated by a
real world problem faced by a national oil company in the
South East Asia region. In this region, a company
produces and distributes a set of oil products and also
controls their inventories. The company has a production
port and a set of consumption ports. Since the demand
nodes are located in geographically dispersed islands, the
company operates several heterogeneous ships to
distribute the products. The detailed characteristics of the
problem are defined as follow:
x Each port has one or more storages.
x Each storage contains only one product.
x Each product has a daily production rate or a
consumption rate.
x Each storage has lower and upper inventory limits
x Ships differ in the number and capacity of
compartments, and speed.
x The ships travel between ports to ensure that the
levels of storages are within their limits.
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x A ship may visit up to two consumption ports in one
assignment.
x Partial loading and/or unloading are allowed.
x A ship may load any types of products, but only one
product in each compartment.
x Each port can receive more than one ship at a time.
Several ships can load or unload products
simultaneously.
x The loading and unloading of products can only occur
one at a time. It cannot be done simultaneously.
There exists loading or unloading rate for each
product and a fixed setup time for changing product
in this process.
x A ship may need a fixed setup time to enter a port.
x Waiting time is permitted in a port to when there are
more products or more space in their storages so as to
unload more products.
x All ships satisfy the draft limit of all ports.
x At the beginning of the planning horizon, initial
inventory levels of storages are known. Furthermore,
the compartment contents and position of ships are
also given as input.
The objective of the problem is to find a minimum
cost solution for the ship routing and loading/unloading
schedules during the planning horizon.
III. PROPOSED MODEL
In solving a maritime inventory routing problem, our
algorithm can be divided into two parts: multi-heuristics
algorithm and Genetic Algorithm (GA). As in Siswanto
et.al [13], multi heuristics is a set of heuristic
combinations each of which consist of strategies at four
decision points that need to be solved simultaneously. The
strategies are composed of (1) ship selection, (2) ship
routing determination, (3) unloading, and (4) loading
procedures. These strategies are encoded as a
chromosome to represent an assignment of a ship.
An assignment is defined as one movement of a ship
from its current position to another port to deliver
products. A number of assignments in one chromosome
are defined as a step. This can be seen as the number of
step look ahead. Each assignment will change the
condition or status of a collection of variables defined as a
state, for example ship’s position, its compartment levels
and their contents, and storage levels. We denote SIn as an
initial state of assignment n, while SAn as a state after
processing assignment n. Obviously, SAn = SIn+1.
Coverage day (CD) is used to determine which port
and its storage needs to be served next. We have two
definitions of CDik depending on the type of ports. For a
discharge port, CDik means the number of days that port i
can cover the demand of product k from its storage before
it runs out. While for a production port, it means the
number of days that port i can continue producing product
k before its storage reaches the maximum capacity. The
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less coverage days, the more urgent a port needs to be
served by a ship. The term CD has the same meaning as
the term “urgency” as described in [11, 12] and the term
“capacity breach” in [8].
A. Chromosome Representation
We developed a chromosome based on the characteristic
of a mathematical model solution solved using Lingo. The
genes are grouped by decision points as follows:
1) Ship selection.
This decision point only needs one gene, called as gene0.
The possible value of this gene depends on the number of
ships.
2) Routing determination
Three genes are needed to describe the routing of the
selected ship. Gene1 is used to determine whether the ship
needs to go to a production port or not. Gene2 determines
the number of consumption port(s) that will be visited by
the ship. The last gene, gene3, determines the visiting port
sequence. This sequence also depends on the value of
gene2 as described in the table below.
TABLE 1
THE ROUTING SEQUENCE
Gene3 Gene2 The first The second
visiting port visiting port
0 The CD port [0]
0 1 The CD port [0] The CD port [1]
0 The CD port [0]
1 1 The CD port [1] The CD port [0]
0 The CD port [1]
2 1 The CD port [1] The CD port [2]
In this table, the CD port is a result of the sorted storage
process that will be explained in more detail in the next
section.
3) Unloading procedure
This decision point only has one gene that determines
what kind of and how much product(s) need to be
unloaded from the ship’s compartment(s) into port’s
storage(s). There are three values in this gene. The
gene4=0 means that the unloading quantity is equal to the
least of the visiting port’s demand or the quantities on
board for both products. When gene 4=1 or gene4=2, only
product0 or product1 is unloaded as much as the product
demand or quantity on board, respectively.
4) Loading procedure
In this decision point, the number of genes depends on the
maximum number of compartments among the modeled
ships. If we have a maximum of two compartments, this
point needs three genes. The first gene, gene 5, determines
the quantities loaded in the ship compartments. The next
two genes, gene6 and gene7 determine how to allocate
products into ship’s compartments. Three possible values
of gene5 are described as:
x Gene5=0 means that if the products available in the
production storages are less than the compartment

capacities of the ships, the loading quantity is set
to be the products in the storages. Otherwise, it is
set to be the compartment capacities.
x Gene5=1 means that the loading quantity is set to
be the least value among (1) the product demands,
(2) products available in the production storages
and (3) the compartment capacities of the ships. If
there are two visiting ports in the routing, the
demand is the total of those two ports.
x Gene5=2 means that the loading quantity is set to
be the compartment capacities.
The value of the last two genes depends on the number of
products. If we model dedicated compartments, we fix the
product numbers on these genes. These two genes can be
disregarded if gene1=1 because the ship does not perform
loading activity.
An example chromosome is shown in figure 1. It
represents a step that consists of three ship assignments.
Step one
Assignment 0 Assignment 1
Gene No 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3
Chromosome 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 2
Fig. 1. An example of chromosome that has three
assignments in one step.
B. Multi-heuristics Procedure
As previously explained, the algorithm consists of a
strategic combination of heuristics at four decision points.
The strategies represented by a chromosome are applied
in various positions in the algorithm as presented in figure
2. The detailed steps are described below:
1) Coverage days, calculation and sorting
At the beginning of each iteration, the CDs of all
storages is calculated and sorted. In this process, we keep
track of the port’s time and the current level of the
storages at that time. At the beginning of a period, we set
all those times to be zero. These times are updated when
there is a ship performing activities in the visited port.
In sorting CDs, first we give higher priority to
consumption storages. The production port storages will
be taken into account whenever all consumption storages
have reached at least as far as the planning horizon.
Based on the CDs sorted result, we rank all ports in
ascending order. The port that has the least CD will have
the highest rank, the CD port [0]. This port is the first port
for which its storage will have a shortage soon. If a port
has more than one storage, the one that has the least CD is
used for sorted for this particular port.
2) Routing determination
A ship is selected based on the value of gene0. The
routing of the selected ship is determined by the port rank
and the values of gene1 through gene3, as explained in
table 1.
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Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE IEEM
3) Loading and unloading quantity calculation
As mentioned, there are three parameters related to
loading activity. The first is the product demand which is
defined as the quantity to cover the demand until the end
of the planning horizon. If there are more than one
visiting ports, the product demand is the total of those
ports.
The second is the product(s) available in the
production storages. For this parameter, we calculate the
product(s) available at the time when the selected ship
arrives at the production port. Lastly, it is the
compartment capacities of the ship. The calculation of the
last parameter depends on the assignment of products into
compartments. We sum the total compartment capacity
for each product. If there is a product not assigned, the
compartment capacity for that product is zero.
Algorithm 1
1 Set assignment number n=0;
2: while n < maximum assignment number
Assignment 2 3: while the stopping criteria are not true
4 5 6 7 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
4: Sort storages of state SIin based on coverage days
2 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 1
5: Set selected ship S as in genein0
6: Determine the ship routing based on the values of
genein1, genein2, and genein3
7: Calculate loading and unloading quantity based on the
values of genein4, genein5, genein6, and genein7
8: Calculate loading activities
9: Update state SAin of ship S and production port Pp
10: m=0
11: while m < values of (genein2+1)
12: Calculate unloading activities of the ship at the mth
visiting port
13: Update state SAin of ship S and consumption port
Pcm
14: m = m + 1;
15: end while
16: Calculate fitness function at the end of assignment n
17: end while
18: n = n + 1;
19: end while
Fig. 2. Chromosome evaluating process.
4) Time and cost calculation
Having determined the loading quantities, it is not
difficult to update the new storage and compartment
levels. The arrival time of the ship in the port is calculated
based on the last ship time and the sailing time. When the
arrival time is greater than the coverage days of the port
storages, we give a penalty cost for being late to arrive
because it makes the storage(s) of the port overflow or
becomes out of stock. The transportation cost is also
calculated as the total of the loading and unloading cost,
the setup port cost, and the sailing cost. Lastly, we also
calculate the completion cost to force the solution to reach
the end of planning horizon. It works as a penalty cost
because the storage has not covered its demand until the
end of the planning horizon.
Moreover, we also calculate the time when the
selected ship will depart from the port based on the last
ship time, i.e. the sailing time plus the loading activity
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time or the waiting time, whichever is greater. The last
part is the time to wait for getting more product(s).
The same procedure is carried out for any unloading
activities.
5) Fitness function
Each chromosome in a population is evaluated in the
GA framework by using a fitness function. The function
is composed of three parts: total transportation cost,
penalty cost, and completion cost, as described in
equation (1).
Fitness function = w1 total cost + w2 penalty cost +
w3 completion cost (1)
The fitness function is highly influenced by the
values of three parameters: w1, w2, and w3. We set w2 and
w3 significantly high compared to w1 because we would
like to avoid solutions that have storage shortage or
overflow and to have also solutions that satisfy demand
through the planning horizon.
Core 2 CPU 6300 1.86 GHz machine. We use five
generated datasets which represent (2,3,2,2)
configurations of the number of ships, ports, products and
compartments. Each dataset is run for 10 and 15 days
planning horizon. Then, we compared the method results
with the ones of the mathematical model. The detailed
mathematical model and problem instances can be found
in [13].
Based on table II, for each test instance, the ones with
15 days planning horizon need significant longer running
time to solve, in comparison to the ones for 10 days by
using the mathematical model. On the contrary, there are
no dramatic changes in running time to solve between 10
and 15 days planning horizon problems by using the
proposed method, as seen in table III.

C. Genetic Algorithm

Thirty chromosomes are randomly generated to form

a population at each generation. Each of the chromosomes
in the population consists of six assignments in one step. Fig. 3. The progress of the fitness function of the elite
The chromosomes are evaluated based on the least fitness chromosomes as a function of generation.
function by using algorithm 1. We keep the six best
chromosomes (we call this the elite) from the old
population to form a new population in each generation.
A new set of chromosomes are then generated through
crossover and mutation. There are two points that need to
be generated for performing crossover and mutation: the
number of assignments and the number of genes.
The generation will be terminated whenever all
storages have CDs to at least the end of the planning
horizon, or if it has reached its maximum generation. Fig. 4. The progress of total cost of the elite
chromosomes as a function of generation.
TABLE II
THE RESULT OF MATHEMATICAL MODEL SOLVED USING LINGO

Test Planning Mathematical Model

Instance Horizon Solution Run Time (s)
10 38.0 11,178
1
15 73.0 >> 5.0E+5*
10 54.9 259
2
15 96.8 22,929
10 42.1 1515
3
15 76.8 1,525
10 137.0 574 Fig. 5. The progress in reaching the least urgency of the elite
4 chromosomes as a function of generation.
15 269.0 21,161
10 91.0 49
5
15 208.0 5482
(*) problem not terminating before the time limit of 5.0E+5 seconds Although the solution of the proposed method does
not guarantee to always get a globally optimal solution as
in the mathematical model, the proposed method provides
IV. DISCUSSION feasible solutions within an acceptable running time.
Among thirty experiments for each problem, we always
We have conducted experiments to test the achieved the global optimal solution.
performance of the proposed method by using an Intel

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 Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE IEEM

TABLE III
THE RESULT OF MULTI HEURISTICS BASED GA

Best Multi-Heuristics based GA (30 running repetition)

Test Planning Mathematical Best Average
Gap Standard
Instance Horizon Model Solution Maximum Average running
(%) Deviation
Solution (Minimum) time (s)
10 38.0 38.0 0 38.0 38.0 0 527
1
15 73.0 73.0 0 84.0 74.7 3.66 855
10 54.9 54.9 0 61.4 58.5 2.80 700
2
15 96.8 96.8 0 147.1 116.7 10.78 944
10 42.1 42.1 0 44.4 42.2 0.42 108
3
15 76.8 76.8 0 101.5 88.9 5.56 844
10 137.0 137.0 0 139.2 173.0 7.07 605
4
15 269.0 269.0 0 325.0 287.8 15.04 950
10 91.0 91.0 0 106.0 92.5 4.58 548
5
15 208.0 208.0 0 225.0 216.3 4.98 747

Figures 3, 4, and 5 represent a solution of test
instance no. 4 with 15 day planning horizon. These
figures show the progress of fitness function, total cost
and the least urgency among all storages in the ports as a
function of generation. At the beginning of period the
minimum total cost is the lowest value, on the other hand
the fitness function is the highest one at that time. This is
caused by the highest completion cost, added to the total
cost since the least urgency is the lowest value at this
time. When the number of generation becomes larger, all
the demands have been fulfilled and they reach their
levels to satisfy the demands until the end of planning
horizon. At this point, the total cost will have the same
value with the fitness function because there is no late
shipment.
V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper, we show that a multi-heuristics based
GA may reach the same global optimal as the solutions in
the mathematical model, but with a significant decrease in
computational time. However, for solving larger problems
(i.e. more than six assignments: longer planning horizon
or modeling more ports or/and products to be served), the
method needs to be modified to deal with the
chromosome representation. Longer chromosomes make
it more difficult to converge and also take more time to
solve. Moreover, the methods can also be applied in
strategic decision by setting different number of ships to
get the optimal number and the type of ships serving the
ports during the predefined planning horizon. This will be
an interesting challenge for our intended future extension
of this problem.
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