Multi-objective Optimization in the Date Supply Chain Network Design

Recently, food and agricultural supply chains have attracted researchers’ attention as they provide more values for their stockholders. Hence a new approach to design a closed-loop supply chain network for date products is firstly developed in this work, which is one of the most well-known, rich, and desirable fruits. Date products and by-products are also considered in this network for the use in their target markets. In this regard, a new mathematical model is formulated to optimize the total costs including fixed, processing, operating, and transportation costs in both forward and reverse flows. The main contribution of this paper is to consider an innovative supply chain network model based on the unique characteristics of the date product. In this closed-loop network, the sustainability of the date product in the supply chain network is investigated for the first time. Also, product waste collection to the recycling centers is introduced in this model. To address the developed model, a set of meta-heuristic algorithms and a hybrid one along with the CPLEX solver of GAMS are utilized. Moreover, to validate the proposed model and the performance of these algorithms, several problem sizes are generated and solved. To achieve the best results, the parameters of the proposed algorithms are tuned based on the Taguchi method. Last but not least, sensitivity analyses are conducted and the results show a meaningful decrease in the overall costs of the date industry considering by-products and waste collection in the reverse flow.