Robust optimization with applications in maritime inventory routing

Abstract

In recent years, the importance of incorporating uncertainty into planning models for logistics and transportation systems has been widely recognized in the Operations Research and transportation science communities. Maritime transportation, as a major mode of transport in the world, is subject to a wide range of disruptions at the strategic, tactical and operational levels. This thesis is mainly concerned with the development of robustness planning strategies that can mitigate the effects of some major types of disruptions for an important class of optimization problems in the shipping industry. Such problems arise in the creation and negotiation of long-term delivery contracts with customers who require on-time deliveries of high-value goods throughout the year. In this thesis, we consider the disruptions that can increase travel times between ports and ultimately affect one or more scheduled deliveries to the customers. Computational results show that our integrated solution procedure and robustness planning strategies can generate delivery plans that are both economical as well as robust against uncertain disruptions.