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A sustainable uncertain integrated supply chain network design and assembly line balancing problem with U-shaped assembly lines and multi-mode demand

  • Optimization
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Abstract

Supply chain network design (SCND) problems are essential in formulating strategic decisions on the number of facilities, network facility location, and plant capacity, to ensure the optimal delivery of products from manufacturers to end consumers. On the other hand, assembly line balancing (ALB) problems provide details on operational decisions which encompass production levels and inventories and therefore should be flexible enough to react when changes in resource availability and product demands occur. This study develops a novel combination of these independent problems as a multi-objective SCND-ALB problem which considers economic, environmental, and social objectives in determining the optimal design and operational conditions of the supply chain which consists of U-shaped assembly lines. Furthermore, the normal type belief degree-based uncertainty is considered to reflect the uncertainty of the parameters of the problem. The uncertain formulation is crisped using two different approaches. Then, two multi-objective solution approaches of the literature such as TH and GCM approaches are considered to simultaneously account for the three sustainability objectives of the obtained crisp multi-objective formulations. Finally, a numerical example is used to demonstrate the capabilities of the problem in detail. Furthermore, several test problems are used to compare the performance of the solution approaches. Based on the obtained results, the TH approach performs better in 100% of the experiments.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers of the journal for their constructive comments that helped to improve the paper.

Funding

This study was not funded by any organization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Industrial Engineering, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

    Nahid Farzan, Sadegh Niroomand & Saber Molla-Alizadeh-Zavardehi

  2. Department of Mathematics, Ayatollah Amoli Branch, Islamic Azad University, Amol, Iran

    Ali Mahmoodirad

  3. Department of Industrial Engineering, Firouzabad Higher Education Center, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, Iran

    Sadegh Niroomand

Authors
  1. Nahid Farzan
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  2. Ali Mahmoodirad
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  3. Sadegh Niroomand
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  4. Saber Molla-Alizadeh-Zavardehi
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Correspondence to Ali Mahmoodirad.

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Author Nahid Farzan declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Ali Mahmoodirad declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Sadegh Niroomand declares that he has no conflict of interest. Author Saber Molla-Alizadeh-Zavardehi declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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Farzan, N., Mahmoodirad, A., Niroomand, S. et al. A sustainable uncertain integrated supply chain network design and assembly line balancing problem with U-shaped assembly lines and multi-mode demand. Soft Comput 28, 2967–2986 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-023-09227-0

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