Multi-objective green supply chain optimization with a new hybrid memetic algorithm using the Taguchi method

The aim of most supply chain optimization problems is to minimize the total cost of the supply chain. However, since environmental protection is of concern to the public, a green supply chain, because of its minimum effect on nature, has been seriously considered as a solution to this concern. This paper addresses the modeling and solving of a supply chain design for annual cost minimization, while considering environmental effects. This paper considers the cost elements of the supply chain, such as transportation, holding and backorder costs, and also, the environmental effect components of the supply chain, such as the amount of NO2, CO and volatile organic particles produced by facilities and transportation in the supply chain. Considering these two components (cost and environmental effects), we propose a multi-objective optimization problem. In this model, the facilities and transportation options have a capacity constraint and, at each level of the chain, we have several transportation options with different costs. We utilize a memetic algorithm in combination with the Taguchi method to solve this complex model. We also propose a novel decoding method and priority based algorithm for coding the solution chromosome. The performance of the proposed solution method has been examined against the hybrid genetic Taguchi algorithm (GATA) on a set of numeric instances, and results indicate that the proposed method can effectively provide better results than previous solution procedures.