Title: Applying a hybrid transportation system to design an agile multi-product and multi-echelon dynamic supply chain

Authors: Mohammad Nikzamir

Addresses: Industrial Engineering Department, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: Making optimum decisions under complicated circumstances, requires using appropriate mathematical modelling techniques and optimisation methods. In many cases, supply and demand are different in principal. These major differences force producers to make various decisions for supplying required raw materials and meeting demands. Respecting the low operational and high strategic costs of applying the rail transport, it is highly recommended to use this method of transportation for the purpose of transporting huge load of materials/products in a centralised network. However, using vehicles and road transport is more suitable for small loads of materials/products in widespread networks. Current study is devoted to design an efficient hybrid transportation system and an agile multi-product supply chain. A mathematical model is presented in order to formulate the problem at hand. Numerical results demonstrate the validity of the presented model and the applied optimisation procedure in making optimum and applicable decisions. In fact, numerical results reveal the promising ability of the applied optimisation procedure confronting real-world situations.

Keywords: agile supply chains; multi-product supply chains; multi-echelon supply chains; dynamic supply chains; optimisation; mathematical modelling; hybrid transport systems; operational research; supply chain agility; supply chain management; SCM; rail transport; road transport.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMOR.2017.083184

International Journal of Mathematics in Operational Research, 2017 Vol.10 No.3, pp.261 - 285

Received: 14 Mar 2015
Accepted: 24 May 2015
Published online: 22 Mar 2017 *

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