A robust design for a Colombian dairy cooperative's milk storage and refrigeration logistics system using binary programming

Abstract

This article describes a robust design for a milk storage and refrigeration logistics system for a dairy cooperative located in the Ubaté region of Colombia using a binary programming model. Such design included cooling tank location, assigning producers to the tanks and calculating system capacity. This research was aimed at identifying the most robust and cost-efficient configuration (given the design's parameters).Perturbation parameters, robustness requirements and performance features were thus qualitatively and quantitatively identified; the perturbation parameters’ impact on robustness requirements and performance features was also determined. A supply chain involves a variety of configurations, along with variations in milk supply (perturbation parameter). The most robust configuration and associated costs were thus identified through robustness-cost characterization and used for designing the dairy cooperative's logistical storage and refrigeration system. A tactical plan was also drawn up for optimizing cooling tank use.Our main theoretical conclusion regarding this matter (depending on how robustness requirements and perturbation parameters are defined and calculated) suggested that the most robust system does not necessarily represent higher costs because the most robust configurations were in fact the least costly concerning high milk supply values.