Grant: Engage Grants Program

The company, PIDZ, located in the region of Quebec, has been operational for more than three years. It operates in the field of catering business and possesses presently three restaurants. The administrator of PIDZ noticed that 80 % of the sales of his company result from delivery and take-out orders. He intends to develop the concept of virtual restaurant. It consists in implanting one or several kitchens, located strategically, to cover the biggest territory while offering the shortest possible delivery deadlines. This research project consists in implementing a virtual restaurant and optimizing its functioning. Our study lies in the area of location, transportation and inventory problems. The problem in question is highly combinatorial. In other words, the solution space is too huge to make an exhaustive exploration. Hence the importance of an intelligent search. The objective of this study is to propose to the company an effective software allowing the opening and the management of a virtual restaurant consisting of a set of kitchens and a fleet of delivery vehicles. We also consider improving the functioning of the current restaurants in order to establish an effective use of the resources with the aim of minimizing the expenses and maximizing the profits. To tackle this problem we plan to use the approximation approach. At first, we formulate the problem into a mathematical programming problem. Several criteria, capturing at best different objectives sought by the company, will be proposed. For each of these criteria, a set of meta heuristics will be designed and implemented. A hyper-heuristic algorithm will also be also proposed and implemented, in the form of a software package, to guide at best the use of thesemetaheuristics