A global-responsive supply chain considering sustainability and resiliency: Application in the medical devices industry

Abstract

Given the requirements of international businesses, this research addresses the supply chain network design problem in the real-world situation by considering four critical features: sustainability, resiliency, responsiveness, and globalization. For this purpose, a multi-objective mathematical model is proposed that minimizes the environmental impacts and the total costs and maximizes the social impacts while considering the resilience and responsiveness of the global supply chain. Then, the modified fuzzy robust stochastic method is employed to tackle the uncertainty. This study selects one of the most important medical devices during the pandemic (COVID-19) namely the blood bank refrigerator as a case study. Afterwards, the proposed multi-objective model is solved by developing a novel method named as augmented lexicographic weighted Tchebycheff method. Based on the obtained results, an increase in the responsiveness level of the supply chain can lead to increasing the sustainability dimensions, including job opportunities, safety, carbon emission, and economic aspects. Moreover, an increase in demands harms the economic, environmental, and responsiveness targets. The demand has a pivotal role in selecting resilience strategy, as well.