A possibilistic programming approach for closed-loop supply chain network design under uncertainty

The design of closed-loop supply chain networks has attracted more attention in recent years according to business and environmental factors. The significance of accounting for uncertainty and risk in such networks spurs an interest to develop appropriate decision making tools to cope with uncertain and imprecise parameters in closed-loop supply chain network design problems. This paper proposes a hi-objective possibilistic mixed integer programming model to deal with such issues. The proposed model integrates the network design decisions in both forward and reverse supply chain networks, and also incorporates the strategic network design decisions along with tactical material flow ones to avoid the sub-optimalities led from separated design in both parts. To solve the proposed possibilistic optimization model, an interactive fuzzy solution approach is developed by combining a number of efficient solution approaches from the recent literature. Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the significance and applicability of the developed possibilistic model as well as the usefulness of the proposed solution approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.