Title: A multi-objective location-allocation problem with lateral transshipment between distribution centres

Authors: Hossein Salehi; Reza Tavakkoli-Moghaddam; G. Reza Nasiri

Addresses: School of Industrial Engineering, South Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran ' School of Industrial Engineering and Research Institute of Energy Management & Planning, College of Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: Location-allocation problem as one of the strategic decisions in supply chain management has become the focus of research attention. In this paper we design a distribution network by modelling for location-allocation in a supply chain that involves a fixed plant, distribution centres with multiple levels of capacities and retailers. The aim is to select the optimum numbers, locations, capacities of the opening warehouses, allocation retailers to the opened warehouses, therefore all multi-product stochastic customer demands are satisfied at the minimum total cost of the distribution network and the maximum average of warehouse utilisation. In addition lateral transshipment within an inventory system is considered (i.e., product movements between locations of the same echelon). The model developed as a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model and an efficient heuristic-based memetic algorithm is proposed. Furthermore, a number of test problems are solved and the associated results are compared to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: supply chain management; SCM; location allocation problem; inventory modelling; lateral transshipment; multi-objective modelling; distribution centres; warehouse utilisation; inventory management; mixed-integer nonlinear programming; MINLP; memetic algorithms.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLSM.2015.072749

International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 2015 Vol.22 No.4, pp.464 - 482

Received: 24 Feb 2014
Accepted: 02 Sep 2014

Published online: 28 Oct 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article