MIP Optimization of the Lithium Logistics problem

We investigate the optimization of a real-world logistics problem, which is concerned with shipping a dangerous chemical substance in various degrees of refinement to several locations and customers. Transport frequencies, inventories, and container flows have to be optimized. On the one hand, we discuss the mathematical structure of our problem (one result being its NP-completeness), and on the other hand, we describe our practical approach, which achieves nearly optimal solutions.