Sustainable supply chain network design: A case of the glass manufacturer in Asia

Traditionally, profit maximization was the major objective for many businesses. However, due to growing stakeholders’ pressure and awareness about the social and environmental impacts of supply chain activities, many companies are now focused on optimizing their profits, while reducing negative impacts of their activities on planet and society. While sustainable development requires concurrent and balanced consideration of social, environmental and economic dimensions, unbalanced approaches have been adopted both in real world practices, and in academic literature. We contribute to the stream of research in the literature that tries to address this gap. We propose a multi-objective mixed-integer programming (MOMIP) model for sustainable supply chain network design (SSCND), encompassing economic, environmental, and social objectives. Both strategic and tactical network design decision variables are considered, including location, size, and technology type of facilities, along with determining the flow of materials and transportation modes. The Normalized Normal Constraint Method is applied to generate evenly distributed Pareto frontiers. The case of a glass manufacturing company in Asia is used to demonstrate applicability of the model and solution procedure to real-world problems. Non-dominated solutions are analyzed, and a more sustainable and balanced network design alternative is proposed, which outperforms the current network configuration in terms of all three dimensions of sustainability. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed.