COMBINATORIAL OPTIMIZATION APPLICATIONS IN CHILEAN LOG-TRANSPORT

"In the forest industry, trucks must transport timber from harvest fields to processing plants in a timely manner according to the strategic planning. The number of trips performed by each truck influences the number of trucks needed and the drivers compensation. Besides, these trucks belong to several companies with different fares according to the characteristics of the trips. Usually, the schedule is solved with ASICAM. This software simulates a day of work and heuristically assigns trips to trucks. We present two studies performed in Arauco S.A. In the first one, the objective was to study the number of trucks needed in the second one, the objective was to reduce the cost by changing the assignment of trips to companies. For the first problem, a heuristic procedure solves the related Bin Packing Problem decreasing in a 24.88% the number of trucks and increasing in a 25.47% the number of trips per truck per day, which has a positive effect on drivers compensation. For the second problem, a heuristic procedure solves a Ranking Assignment Problem returning a set of different assignments to select, by the decision maker, the best suited for the problem."