Title: Goal programming approach for agile sustainable pharmaceutical supply chain

Authors: Meghdad Haji Mohammad Ali Jahromi; Ali Nazeri; Ehsan Ghorbani

Addresses: Department of Industrial Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Damavand Branch, Damavand, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Damavand Branch, Damavand, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Damavand Branch, Damavand, Iran

Abstract: In this paper, a pharmaceutical supply chain network with four levels including suppliers, major distributors, retailers and customers was considered and in order to have agility and sustainability benefits simultaneously, goal programming approach has been used. In fact, an optimum structure regarding sustainable aspects of supply chain in light of economic, social, environmental and political aspects (i.e., as important aspects in the current situation) were designed. Also, for this purpose, a digraph corresponded to a feasible structure under real situation of pharmaceutical supply chain was considered, and then with help of goal programming approach, an optimum configuration, which is a sub-digraph from the main, will be achieved. Results show that the model has high capability to configure pharmaceutical chain according to expectations of the managers and experts of the chain.

Keywords: sustainable supply chain; goal programming; pharmaceutical supply chain.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2022.127420

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2022 Vol.42 No.4, pp.499 - 515

Received: 12 Feb 2020
Accepted: 26 Feb 2021
Published online: 05 Dec 2022 *

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