An Artificial Immune Algorithm for a Closed-Loop Supply Chain Network Design Problem with Different Delivery Paths

Abstract

The concern about customer satisfaction and transportation cost in the business environment has spurred an interest in designing a flexible logistics network. This paper proposes a multi-delivery path closed-loop supply chain network to find not only the most cost efficient network design but also the best path to deliver the products to customers. To tackle with such an NP-hard problem an Artificial Immune Algorithm (AIA) is modified. To show the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method numerical experiments are conducted. Consequently, the computational results validate the quality of the proposed approach by comparing them with those of obtained with exact methods.