GRASP ALGORITHM APPLIED TO THE DISTRIBUTION PROBLEM OF A DAIRY COMPANY: A CASE STUDY

This study addresses the problem of product distribution of a dairy company, modeled as a Traveling Salesman Problem (PCV), a problem characterized as NP-difficult, where it is not always possible to find the optimal solution in a reasonable processing time. Two variants were considered: minimization of travel time and distance traveled, in instances ranging from 6 to 48 service points. To solve the proposed problems, three versions of the GRASP (Greedy Randomized Adaptive Search Procedure) algorithm were implemented, adapted to the specificities of the problems. The solutions obtained were compared with results already reported in the literature for this problem, demonstrating that the proposed approach is competitive in the search for high-quality solutions.