Title: A new supply chain network design approach, regarding retailer's inventory level and supplier's response time

Authors: Reza Rashid; Saeed Dehnavi Arani; Seyed Farzad Hoseini; Mohammad Mohammadpour Omran

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak 16844, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak 16844, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak 16844, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak 16844, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: This paper deals with the retailer's location problem, when inventory costs for retailers and response time costs for suppliers have been considered. Generally, in a supply chain, most of the parameters are not deterministic, for this reason, we considered demand and service time as stochastic parameters, and queuing theory has been used to prepare a comprehensive mathematical model. In this system, each supplier has been represented with an M/M/1 queue and each retailer has been represented with an M/M/1 queue with bulk arrival. Due to the computational complexity of the proposed model, a genetic algorithm has been proposed to obtain acceptable solutions in a reasonable time. Further, performance of the proposed (GA) is compared against LINGO package software for small-sized problems. Our computational results suggest that the proposed GA is able to solve our mathematical model, especially for large sizes. To evaluate performance of the model, a real example of dairy supply chains has been prepared, which confirmed efficiency of the model.

Keywords: SCM; queuing theory; inventory; response time; genetic algorithm.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2018.090423

International Journal of Operational Research, 2018 Vol.31 No.4, pp.421 - 441

Received: 18 Mar 2014
Accepted: 02 May 2015
Published online: 19 Mar 2018 *

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