The capacitated vehicle routing problem (CVRP) is a difficult combinatorial optimization problem that has been intensively studied in the last few decades. We present a hybrid methodology approach to solve this problem which incorporates an improvement stage by using a 1-0 implicit enumeration technique or Balas’s method. Other distinguishing features of the methodology proposed include a specially designed route-based crossover operator for solution recombination and an effective local procedure as the mutation step. Finally, the methodology is tested with instances of the specialized literature and compared with its best-known solutions for the CVRP with homogeneous fleet, to be able to identify the efficiency of the use of the Balas’s methodology in routing problems.