INVENTORY MANAGEMENT IN A BI-ECHELON MULTI-ITEM SUPPLY CHAIN USING AN INTEGRATED MATHEMATICAL MODEL WITH A FUZZY-ANP APPROACH

In this paper, an inventory management framework and deterministic costs models within the context of this framework are structured for effective supply chain under deterministic and fuzzy environment. In this regard, we propose a bi-echelon multi-product supply chain in which a central manufacturing firm (lower echelon) with warehouse space limitation is fed through different suppliers (upper echelon). In order to develop operational measures of supply chain flexibility, a cost structure which captures some different operational cost factors such as inventory holding costs, backordering cost, ordering costs is defined. Moreover, a fuzzy-ANP framework is developed to evaluate suppliers agility to achieve a more agile and responsible network. Further, computational experiment is augmented to examine the supposed model validation as well. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]