Resumo:
Everyday, thousands of vehicles are routed to assist the distribution of several kinds of
products, obeying various criteria and constraints imposed by clients and providers. The
wholesale market, which has been increasing significantly due to its functions importance to
retails and industries, is also inserted in this context for the high complexity of the physical
distribution process. As the complexity of the problems grows, there is the need for the study
and use of systemic approaches and/or optimizations, enabling companies to obtain
improvements in their processes. Considering such features and the wholesale market
complexity, this work aims at analyzing the physical distribution and the operational routine
of vehicle routing and scheduling of a wholesale company. After a bibliographical review on
the main related topics, a case study was developed at “Atacado Vila Nova”, located in the
South of Minas Gerais state – an important company which is in the market for more than 60
years and has an intense routing and physical distribution process. For the development of the
case study the following data sources were used: documentation, file registers, direct
observation and structured interview. As a final result, a general description of the physical
distribution operational process was made seeking to identify the factors considered critical in
the process. Careful attention was paid to the process of vehicle routing and scheduling,
always referring to the concepts from the specialized literature. As a general conclusion, it is
possible to state that the company, despite of using several concepts and support tools in its
physical distribution process – especially a powerful routing software – , still suffers the
effects of lack of information in technically simple operational processes (as the road
distances among clients). Thus, the process ends up being rationalized instead of optimized,
and, in several phases, it becomes extremely dependent on the human factor, i.e., on the
practical experience of the professional involved in such process.