Facility Location Decisions Within Integrated Forward/Reverse Logistics under Uncertainty

In this paper, a stochastic mixed integer linear programming (SMILP) model is proposed to optimize the location and size of facilities and service centres in integrated forward and reverse streams under uncertainty. The objective of the model is to minimize establishment, transportation and inventory management costs and simultaneously maximize customer satisfaction with sustainable perspective. The model incorporates different elements and features of distribution networks including inventory management, transportation and establishment of new facilities as well as existing centres. The presented model is the streamlined approach for multi-objective, multi-period, multi-commodity distribution system, and it is supported by a real case study in automobile after sales network. Genetic algorithm is implemented to solve the model in reasonable time. The performance of the model and the effects of uncertainty on provided solution are studied under different cases. Competitive result of the stochastic model compared to deterministic model ensures that the proposed approach is valid to be applied for decision making under uncertainty. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).