Original title: Supply chain network design under uncertainty: A comprehensive review and future research directions
A supply chain network is the set of places and routes used to make, store, and move goods. This paper reviews research on designing those networks when future conditions are uncertain. It covers ways to plan for possible outcomes, avoid excessive risk, or build plans that can handle a range of conditions. It also identifies gaps in the research and suggests questions for future studies.
Imagine choosing where to put your family’s storage boxes before knowing how much space you’ll need next year. It is hard to choose a layout that works if your needs change, and moving everything later takes effort. In this paper, the storage layout stands for a supply chain network, changing needs stand for uncertainty, and the reviewed planning methods are different ways to choose a layout that can cope.
A factory, warehouse, or delivery network can be expensive to change once it is built. This review explains how researchers model uncertainty when planning those networks, including networks that handle returned goods, and points to gaps that future work could address.
The abstract describes a review of research and recommended future directions; it does not report a new network-design method or a measured comparison showing which uncertainty approach performs best. It does not specify the review’s search method, the studies included, or the details of its recommendations.
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Supply chain network design under uncertainty: A comprehensive review and future research directions — Kannan Govindan, Mohammad Fattahi, Esmaeil Keyvanshokooh — European Journal of Operational Research — doi:10.1016/j.ejor.2017.04.009
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.