A Multi-objective Sustainable Medicine Supply Chain Network Design Using a Novel Hybrid Multi-objective Metaheuristic Algorithm

End-of-life products have a severe impact on the ecological system. Potential production policies and distribution strategies for the newly manufactured product have attracted significant attention to sustainable development. Sustainability in supply chain management has much importance to achieve eco-friendly goals. In this study, we have developed sustainable objectives in the supply chain optimization framework with different constraints. The trade-off between economic, environmental and social effects objectives have identified by ensuring the optimal allocation of different products among various levels.  In this regard, a new sustainability multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming mathematical model in the medicine supply chain network is developed. Although the proposed model is an NP-hard problem, we develop a novel hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization and Genetic Algorithm to achieve Pareto solutions. Then, to adjust the important parameters of the algorithms and chose the optimum levels of the significant factors for more efficiency is employed the Taguchi method. The results show that the economic and environmental effects tend to be decreased and the social impacts tend to be increased in the medicine supply chain network which can exhibit the best sustainability performance. The various outcomes of numerical experiments indicate that the proposed solution algorithm is more reliable than other algorithms. The solution methods are complemented with several sensitivity analyses on the input parameters of the model.

Keywords:

Medicine supply chain network , Sustainability , Mixed Integer Linear Programming Model , Multi-objective Problems , hybrid metaheuristic algorithm , Taguchi method