Cloud Theory Based Simulated Annealing for a Closed-Loop Supply Chain Network Design: Spanning Tree Solution Representation

Due to the awareness of the environmental protection, how to reduce the utilization of the materials by reusing and remanufacturing the used products has been a critical issue for an enterprise. This induces the concept of the reverse and closed-loop supply chain management. Different from a conventional supply chain, planning a closed-loop supply chain requires an additional function of recycling and thus, a closed-loop chain is a necessary infrastructure for a material flow. In this paper a mixed-integer linear programming is considered to mathematically model the essentially five stages along our supply chain network: suppliers, manufacturers, DCs, customers, and Dismantlers. NP-hardness of this problem is proved in many papers, so a novel metaheuristic solution method aiming minimization of total costs comprised fixed opening cost of plants, distribution centers and collection/inspection and distribution centers and transportation cost of products between open centers using spanning tree based encoding which has been rarely applied in this area. Comparison of outputs from proposed Clouded Based Simulated Annealing Algorithm (applied for the first time in SCND) shows the excellence of this new solution method in quality of answers with comparison to those of applied in the literature.