Hybrid Optimization for Secure and Timely Medical Logistics: A Case Study in Burkina Faso
- Decision Making in Manufacturing and Services , 19 : 83-104
Résumé
Transportation logistics plays a critical role in ensuring equitable access to medical supplies in low-infrastructure and insecure environments. This paper proposes a three-stage hybrid framework to solve a Vehicle Routing Problem with Safety and Time Windows (VRP-ST) in high-risk contexts. The methodology combines a Clarke–Wright savings heuristic for rapid initialization, an Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) metaheuristic to minimize a risk-adjusted distance objective, and Google OR-Tools to strictly enforce hard constraints, including vehicle capacities and delivery time windows. The approach is evaluated on a nationwide case study involving 44 healthcare centers in Burkina Faso. The results show a 19% reduction in total risk-adjusted distance (from 10,425 to 8,280 units) relative to the initial heuristic solution, together with improved fleet utilization. Beyond this case study, the framework provides a robust and fully feasible decision-support tool for medical logistics planning in crisis-affected regions. A sensitivity analysis under ±10% demand and risk-penalty perturbations confirms the stability of the solutions.
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