Location, Routing, and Inventory

Conclusions

In this paper, a new mathematical model to design a three-level supply chain has been presented by considering the inventory under uncertain demands, risk-pooling, vehicle routing, transportation time, and cost. The decision related to the transportation options has an impact on the transportation time from plants to customers. The trade-off between cost and time is considered in the formulation of a mathematical model that minimizes both criteria. Therefore, this model holding two objectives has been formulated for the first time as a location-inventory-routing problem with a risk-pooling strategy in a three-level supply chain. The Lingo software has been used to solve the given problem. Some future studies are as follows: considering each parameter as a fuzzy, multi-period planning and solving the presented model by using heuristic or meta-heuristic algorithms.