A Multi-Objective Supply Chain Configuration for the Oil Industry under Uncertainty

In recent years, supply chains have become an attractive topic for managers and industrialists, and the life and death of organizations and businesses somehow depend on the activity of intertwined chains. In this study, transferring petroleum products from supply points to consumption areas is examined through a supply chain. Also, in today s competitive environment, the high speed of change and evolution has raised the uncertainty and ambiguity of decisions, that makes it difficult to predict future conditions in supply chains. Hence, a mathematical model is used with two objectives including the reduction of shipping costs and the reduction of the number of loads. Then, by means of some sensitivity analysis, sensitive parameters of the model are recognized. For coping with the uncertainty, reliable planning should be done in uncertain and ambiguous conditions for better and more accurate planning. One of the new and reliable techniques is the robust optimization approach. Therefore, due to the high volume of calculations and the problem data as well as the lack of ability to use exact solution methods, especially on a large scale, PSO and MOGA-II meta-heuristic algorithms are applied to resolve the proposed model. The outcomes show that the model has the required efficiency in large dimensions and the proposed solution methods provide appropriate answers. To be precise, the new bi-objective model had several advantages and the most important one is related to the objectives of reducing the shipping costs and the number of loads.