Designing Fixed Lifetime Perishable Products Supply Chain Using Normal Boundary Intersection Method

Supply chain design has a significant impact on its efficiency and effectiveness. Thus, The purpose of this study is to design a four echelon supply chain including manufacturing, plants, distribution centers, wholesalers and retailers for perishable products. The problem is modeled as a multi-objective mathematical modeling for strategic and tactical levels of decision-making in terms of the number, size and  location of distribution centers and wholesalers, the product flow between different facilities, the inventory levels in distribution centers and also selecting the  transportation vehicles. The objectives of the model is minimizing total cost and total travel time of product in supply chain by considering product life time. Regardings  products life time, varying perishability rates in different storage facilities and also different perishability rates for transportation facilities, are incorporated in the model, to cover the research gap in designing perishable products supply chain. Given to the multi-objective nature of the model, this study applies Normal Boundary Intersection (NBI) method which has significant superiority compared over other approaches like goal programming. GAMS 24 and CPLEX solver were used for solving in a case study in iran dairy industry.