A Study on the Optimization of Chain Supermarkets’ Distribution Route Based on the Quantum-Inspired Evolutionary Algorithm

The chain supermarket has become a major part of China’s retail industry, and the optimization of chain supermarkets’ distribution route is an important issue that needs to be considered for the distribution center, because for a chain supermarket it affects the logistics cost and the competition in the market directly. In this paper, analyzing the current distribution situation of chain supermarkets both at home and abroad and studying the quantum-inspired evolutionary algorithm (QEA), we set up the mathematical model of chain supermarkets’ distribution route and solve the optimized distribution route throughout QEA. At last, we take Hongqi Chain Supermarket in Chengdu as an example to perform the experiment and compare QEA with the genetic algorithm (GA) in the fields of the convergence, the optimal solution, the search ability, and so on. The experiment results show that the distribution route optimized by QEA behaves better than that by GA, and QEA has stronger global search ability for both a small-scale chain supermarket and a large-scale chain supermarket. Moreover, the success rate of QEA in searching routes is higher than that of GA.