THE VECHILE ROUTING PROBLEM APPLIED TO MILK-RUN

The milk-run, inserted in the Lean Logistics environment, is characterized by the collection of materials from different suppliers with the aim of optimizing vehicle efficiency, transport costs and material storage. From the point of view of optimization problems, milk-run can be treated as a vehicle routing problem (VRP). This work presents the application of VRP to milk-run from the perspective of lean production objectives, through a case study in a vehicle manufacturer. The result of the test carried out with a sample of data from the real problem shows that the proposed model represents the characteristics of the practical problem, considering the trade-offs between objectives of the lean manufacturing, such as pickup frequency, route efficiency and stock levels at the assembly plant.