Volume 2 Issue 1 pp. 193-202 Winter, 2011


A multi-objective possibilistic programming approach for locating distribution centers and allocating customers demands in supply chains


Seyed Ahmad Yazdian and Kamran Shahanaghi


In this paper, we present a multi-objective possibilistic programming model to locate distribution centers (DCs) and allocate customers' demands in a supply chain network design (SCND) problem. The SCND problem deals with determining locations of facilities (DCs and/or plants), and also shipment quantities between each two consecutive tier of the supply chain. The primary objective of this study is to consider different risk factors which are involved in both locating DCs and shipping products as an objective function. The risk consists of various components: the risks related to each potential DC location, the risk associated with each arc connecting a plant to a DC and the risk of shipment from a DC to a customer. The proposed method of this paper considers the risk phenomenon in fuzzy forms to handle the uncertainties inherent in these factors. A possibilistic programming approach is proposed to solve the resulted multi-objective problem and a numerical example for three levels of possibility is conducted to analyze the model.


DOI: 10.5267/j.ijiec.2010.03.003

Keywords: Facility location, Distribution center, Supply chain, Fuzzy number, Possibilistic programming
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