A strategic decision support system for logistics and supply chain network design

This paper aims to develop a strategic decision support system for logistics and supply chain network design of a multi-stage, multi-commodity, and multi-period distribution and transportation system. A mixed integer linear programming model is proposed to tackle the problem while minimizing the operating, transportation and handling cost through all tiers of the supply chain network. A genetic algorithm based method has been proposed to solve the problem in a large scale realistic environment. The efficacy of the developed strategic decision support model in achieving better utilization of network and resources to fulfil the customer demand is demonstrated using illustrative scenarios inspired from the real case of a logistics company.