Robust possibilistic programming for socially responsible supply chain network design: A new approach

The importance of social responsibility of corporate and business units is increasingly emphasized by researchers and practitioners in recent years. Since supply chains play important roles in today’s business environment, the issue of social responsibility should be considered carefully when designing and planning of supply chains to move towards sustainability. This paper addresses the problem of socially responsible supply chain network design under uncertain conditions. To this aim, first a bi-objective mathematical programming model is developed wherein its objective functions include minimizing the total cost and maximizing the supply chain social responsibility. Then, for coping with uncertain parameters effectively, a novel possibilistic programming approach, called robust possibilistic programming (RPP), is proposed. Several varieties of RPP models are developed and their differences, weaknesses, strengths and the most suitable conditions for being used are discussed. A real industrial case study is provided to illustrate the performance and applicability of the proposed RPP models in practice. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.