Page 110 - DMGT507_SALES AND PROMOTIONS MANAGEMENT

Sales and Promotions Management

Notes Proper routing and scheduling enables the salesperson to:
1. Improve territorial coverage.
2. Minimize wasted time.
3. Establish communication between management and the sales force in terms of the location
and activities of individual salespeople

Travelling Salesman’s Problem

It would seem that there should be some sort of mathematical method for developing the
shortest tours within a territory, but there is no way to develop the shortest route other than to
try every combination or road possible. If the routes are constantly changing – as when a
salesperson has a different set of prospects to visit everyday - then this is not feasible. Fortunately,
there are some heuristics that can be used to find routes that tend to be reasonably short.

Largest Angle Heuristic

Consider the choice below:

You have travelled from Point A to Point B. Should you travel next to Point C or Point D? Using the
Largest Angle Heuristic, you should choose to travel to Point D. When choosing a route using the
Largest Angle Heuristic, always travel next to a point, which generates the largest angle to the
pointed, visited last.

This heuristic will help to ensure that the route is circular and tends to generate efficient routes.

Closest Next Heuristic

Consider the choice below:

You have travelled from Point A to Point B. Should you travel next to Point C or Point D? Using the
Closest Next Heuristic, you should choose to travel to Point D. When choosing a route using the
Closest Next Heuristic, always travel next to a point, which is closest to where you are right
now.
This heuristic also tends to generate efficient routes. Which is better, the Largest Angle Heuristic
or the Closest Next Heuristic? There is no good answer to this question; the only way to find the
optimal route to a particular problem is to simulate every possible route on a computer (or by
hand) – a very time consuming process. A realistic problem for a salesperson is to generate a
reasonably good route for a single day. Using these heuristics, you might not always find the
optimal route, but you can quickly rough out a route that generally is relatively good with very
little investment in time.

In using these heuristics to make decisions, you should also use the Look Ahead procedure. That
is, don’t simply look at the next point in a route, but look ahead two points and try and use both
of the above heuristics to make a decision for the next two points.

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