discrete facility location,   distribution center,   logistics,   inventory policy,   queueing theory,   markov processes, the distribution center location problem is a crucial question for logistics decision makers. the optimization of these decisions needs careful attention to the fixed facility costs, inventory costs, transportation costs and customer responsiveness. in this paper we study t...

Within the competition in today’s business environment, the design of supply chains becomes more complex than before. This paper deals with the retailer’s location problem when customers choose their vendors, and inventory costs have been considered for retailers. In a competitive location problem, price and location of facilities affect demands of customers; consequently, simultaneous optimiza...

This study considers a reliable location – inventory problem for a supply chain system comprising one supplier, multiple distribution centers (DCs), and multiple retailers in which we determine DCs location, inventory replenishment decisions and assignment retailers to DCs, simultaneously. Each DC is managed through a continuous review (S, Q) inventory policy. For tackling real world conditions...

This paper presents a three-level supply chain model which includes single supplier, several distribution centers and sets of retailers. For this purpose, by adopting the queuing approach, a mixed nonlinear integer programming model is formulated. The proposed model follows minimizing the total cost of the system by determining: 1) the number and location of distribution centers between candida...

a comprehensive and integrated study of any supply chain (sc) environment is a vital requirement that can create various advantages for the sc owners. this consideration causes productive managing of the sc through its whole wide components from upstream suppliers to downstream retailers and customers.  on this issue, despite many valuable studies reported in the current literature, considerabl...

Distribution network design is one of the important issues in supply chain management. Two important sub-problems of distribution network design are inventory and location decisions. Traditional approaches considered inventory and location decisions separately which might result in suboptimal solutions. This paper considers the design of a distribution network and simultaneously determines the ...