Routing Tankers for Dairy Milk Pickup

Etah Dairy, a unit belonging to Lipton India Ltd. and located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, routes tankers every day to pick up milk from collection centers and deliver it to the dairy. The time between pickup and delivery must not exceed a certain season-specific limit. Through heuristics for route construction and improvement, a decision support system, CARS, finds feasible and cost-effective solutions each day for the milk pickup problem. CARS has been implemented at Etah, and the resulting total annual benefits are projected to be Rs. 1 million.