Comments on “A two-stage supply chain problem with fixed costs: An ant colony optimization approach” by Hong et al. International Journal of Production Economics (2018)

The two-stage supply chain problem with fixed costs consists of designing a mimimum distribution cost configuration of the manufacturers, distribution centers and retailers in a distribution network, satisfying the capacity constraints of the manufacturers and distribution centers so as to meet the retailers specific demands. The aim of this work is to pinpoint some inaccuracies regarding the paper entitled ”A two-stage supply chain problem with fixed costs: An ant colony optimization approach” by Hong et al. published in International Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 204, pp. 214–226 (2018) and to propose a valid mixed integer programming based mathematical model of the problem. The comments are related to the mathematical formulation proposed by Hong et al. and the considered test instances.