A DIFFERENTIAL EVOLUTION (DE) ALGORITHIM FOR LOCATION-ALLOCATION DECISIONS OPTIMIZATION IN A TWO-LAYER SUPPLY CHAIN

Efficient supply chains provide right products at right time and right location for customers and improve their profitability, continuously. To create an efficient supply chain, supply chain management should be effectively applied in all echelons of the supply chain in integrated way. Location-allocation decisions in a supply chain are related to strategic level decision making process. In this paper, an efficient differential evolution (DE) algorithm is proposed to optimize the location of facilities in different echelons of the supply chain as well as the material flow (allocation) among different facilities established in echelons. The considered supply chain network includes production centers, distribution centers and customers. Computational results confirm the efficiency of the proposed algorithm in solving real size optimization problems.

Keywords:

Evolutionary algorithm , Supply chain management , Optimization , Mathematical programming , Differential evolution