Supply Chain Network Configuration

Supply chain problems with respect to the area that they address can be classified into four major groups: location-allocation problem, transportation problem, manufacturing problem, and inventory problem. In this book, location-allocation and routing problems, also called LRPs, are studied with two approaches. In the first approach the objective is to minimize the total system cost by finding the best location-allocation and routing plan when demand and travel times are dynamic. The dynamic nature of demand/travel time is presented by functions obtained from historical data. In the second approach, the sustainability perspective of the LRP is considered. The objective is to minimize the total network cost. However,despite the traditional objective function of distance minimization, the total cost is presented in terms of energy cost.