The design of a multi-period and multi-echelon perishable goods supply network under uncertainty

Abstract

The value of superior supply network design is becoming increasingly important, especially in the perishable supply chain. Due to the recent developments in perishable products, perishable product supply chain (PPSC) management has attracted many researchers. The purpose of this study was to present a multi-period and multi-echelon perishable supply chain with regards to procurement time, cycle cost, and customer satisfaction. This study presented a new form of location-routing in a supply chain network for perishable products, accounting for environmental considerations, cost, procurement time, and customer satisfaction, such that the total costs, delivery time, and the emission of pollutants in the network were minimized while customer satisfaction was maximized. We formulated the problem as a multi-objective, nonlinear, mixed-integer program and the hybrid approach was proposed to solve the model. The mean error of the proposed algorithm for the objective function compared to the exact method in solving the sample problems was less than 3.4%. The computational results revealed the efficiency of the proposed algorithm for a wide range of issues of various sizes.