Abstract
One of the most strategic and the most significant decisions in supply chain management is reconfiguration of the structure and design of the supply chain network. In this paper, a closed loop supply chain network design model is presented to select the best tactical and strategic decision levels simultaneously considering the appropriate transportation mode in activated links. The strategic decisions are made for a long term; thus, it is more satisfactory and more appropriate when the decision variables are considered uncertain and fuzzy, because it is more flexible and near to the real world. This paper is the first research which considers fuzzy decision variables in the supply chain network design model. Moreover, in this study a new fuzzy optimization approach is proposed to solve a supply chain network design problem with fuzzy tactical decision variables. Finally, the proposed approach and model are verified using several numerical examples. The comparison of the results with other existing approaches confirms efficiency of the proposed approach. Moreover the results confirms that by considering the vagueness of tactical decisions some properties of the supply chain network will be improved.
Highlights
Chain management (SCM) has received great attention in both industry and academia recently
In the forward supply chain network models, the components and raw materials are purchased from suppliers and the products are manufactured in the plants and they are shipped to downstream facilities (likely warehouses, distribution center (DC) and retailers and certainly the customers) and on the other hand the information and financial flows are given back to the upstream echelons
We believe that by considering of tactical decision variables with fuzzy values the resulted strategic decisions will be more accurate according to the real-world conditions
Summary
Chain management (SCM) has received great attention in both industry and academia recently. Fuzziness of decision variables in the supply chain can lead to have more flexibility in the later decisions in each element of the supply chain (Kabak and Ulengin 2011) This omission appeared anomalous considering tactical and strategic level decisions. As authors best knowledge this study is the first research considering fuzziness of decision variables in supply chain network design problems. Presenting a novel closed loop multi-echelon supply chain network design model which considers tactical and strategic decision levels which this gap is suggested as a necessary and significant future research (Pishvaee and Razmi 2012; Govindan et al 2015). The concluding remarks and the future study directions are expressed in ‘‘Conclusion’’
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