Integrating distributed disassembly line balancing and vehicle routing problem in supply chain: Integer programming, constraint programming, and heuristic algorithms

Abstract

Today, the fast-changing demands of customers force manufacturers to adapt their systems to the variability. As a result of the recent advances in technology and transport systems, most manufacturers have begun to employ more than one distributed facility to respond rapidly to the demands of their customers. In addition, with the emergence of Industry 4.0, information exchange between systems at the same and different levels has become relatively easy. Therefore, effective management of distributed facilities by integrating processes at different levels in the supply chain can provide a significant advantage in adapting the system to customer demand dynamics. Furthermore, recycling waste products and using them in new products have become essential for environmentally friendly production. Therefore, this paper introduces integrated distributed disassembly line balancing and vehicle routing problem first time in the literature. Since the distributed disassembly centers with routing decisions of the vehicles from these centers to the factories have not been considered before, the proposed integrated study will contribute to both industry and the literature. The contribution is not only limited to the proposed integrated problem. Also, novel solution methodologies, mixed-integer linear programming, mixed-integer non-linear programming, and constraint programming models are developed to solve the problem. Besides the mathematical models, a multi-start simulated annealing algorithm is also proposed to overcome the large-size instances due to the complexity of the proposed integrated problem. The comprehensive computational analysis demonstrates that the proposed methods are very competitive in providing good-quality solutions for the problem.