Title: A Multi-Objective Discrete Particle Swarm Optimisation Algorithm for supply chain network design

Authors: S. Prasanna Venkatesan; S. Kumanan

Addresses: Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, TamilNadu, India. ' Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620015, TamilNadu, India

Abstract: Strategic supply chain network optimisation is significant, as it involves long-term decisions with conflicting goals. It is an NP-hard problem and researchers are constantly attempting to use meta-heuristics as a solution approach. In this paper, a Multi-Objective Discrete Particle Swarm Algorithm (MODPSA) is proposed to optimise the supply chain network with the objectives of minimisation of supply chain cost, minimisation of demand fulfilment lead time and maximisation of volume flexibility. Two different global guide selection techniques are implemented in the proposed algorithm. Numerical tests are conducted using the real-life data of a farm equipment manufacturer and the computational analyses are performed on two stages. In the first stage, the performance of two global guide selection techniques are evaluated and in the second stage the proposed MODPSA is compared with Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA II). The results indicate that the proposed approach is effective in producing high-quality Pareto-optimal solutions.

Keywords: strategic supply chains; supply chain networks; network optimisation; supply chain flexibility; priority-based encoding; MODPSA; multiobjective discrete PSO; particle swarm optimisation; Pareto optimality; supply chain management; SCM; supply chain design; network design; metaheuristics; supply chain costs; demand fulfilment lead times; volume flexibility.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2012.045919

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2012 Vol.11 No.3, pp.375 - 406

Published online: 28 Nov 2014 *

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