The Optimization of Distribution Path of Fresh Cold Chain Logistics Based on Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

The products of the enterprise are the logistics objects of the enterprise. Therefore, the company’s products are the primary factor affecting logistics costs. The products of different enterprises may be different in terms of the type, nature, volume, quality, and physical and chemical properties of the products, which will have different impacts on the cost of logistics activities such as warehousing, transportation, and material handling of enterprises. More and more enterprises have taken the cost of logistics distribution as one of the important indicators affecting the development of enterprises; especially, cold chain logistics has been rapidly developed and valued in recent years, because the requirements of such products for delivery time, distribution efficiency, and distribution environment are very strict, whether the goods can be distributed in a standard and reasonable environment and whether the delivery vehicle can deliver the goods within the time specified by the customer have greatly affected the safety of frozen and refrigerated food. Therefore, this paper reduces the cost of the distributor through the optimization of the distribution path of cold chain logistics and makes the goods distributed can be delivered to the customer faster and more reasonably by establishing an integrated optimization platform, which is of great significance for how to reduce the cost of enterprises. Therefore, this paper starts from the function with the lowest distribution cost as the goal, comprehensively considers the specific characteristics of cold chain logistics, given the relevant constraints, uses the improved genetic algorithm to iterate on the given scheme, sends the improved new scheme to the simulation software for simulation operation, then sends the results obtained by the operation to the genetic algorithm for the next iteration, and repeats it in turn until the prespecified conditions can be terminated. Therefore, this paper summarizes some problems and development status in cold chain logistics and distribution routes by consulting relevant literature, optimizes the scheme by using VRP model combined with constraints, establishes a distribution system model, and finally verifies and analyzes to obtain a more reasonable and satisfactory solution. The innovation of this paper is that the research on the VRP problem is optimized through an improved genetic algorithm, certain improvements have been made in the coding method and the operation of selection, crossover, variation, etc., and the improved genetic algorithm can greatly reduce the number of program iterations. Then, we use the integrated optimization platform to import the solution into FlexSim for simulation, each simulation of the new solution will be transmitted to MATLAB through the Excel table for the next optimization iteration, and we repeat the above steps until the preset conditions are met after the termination. This would lead to a more realistic and satisfactory solution.