A Bi-objective Integrated Production-distribution Planning Problem Considering Intermodal Transportation: An Application to a Textile and Apparel Company

This paper addresses a bi-objective tactical integrated production-distribution planning problem for a multi-stage, multi-site, multi-product and multi-period Supply Chain network. The proposed model considers sea-air intermodal transportation network in order to enhance the responsiveness and flexibility of the distribution planning. This framework aims at making the trade-off between two conflicting goals. The first objective function considers the minimization of the overall costs associated with production, distribution, inventory and backorders. The second goal is to enhance the customers’ service level by maximizing the on-time deliveries over a tactical time horizon. Therefore, to solve the bi-objective model, the ɛ-constraint method is applied to generate efficient Pareto set of optimal solutions. In fact, the obtained Integer Linear Programming model (ILP), solved using LINGO 18.0 software optimization tool. Computational results are based on a real-life case study from a textile and apparel industry. From a practical point of view, the obtained results prove the pertinence of the proposed model in terms of responsiveness and efficiency of the supply chain to handle peaks demand.