An integrated Principal Component Analysis and multi-objective mathematical programming approach to agile supply chain network design under uncertainty

The design of agile supply chain networks has attracted more attention in recent years according to the competitive business environment. Further, due to high degree of uncertainty in agile supply chains (SCs), developing robust and efficient decision making tools are of interest. In this study, an integrated approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) and multi-objective possibilistic mixed integer programming (MOPMIP) approaches is proposed to optimally design agile supply chain network under uncertainty. The PCA method is used for ranking and filtering the suppliers, constituting the first layer of the supply chain, based on agility criteria. The proposed MOPMIP model is employed to construct the agile supply chain network under uncertainty. In the proposed MOPMIP model, three objective functions including 1) total costs minimization, 2) total delivery time minimization and 3) maximization of flexibility are considered. An interactive fuzzy solution approach is used to solve the proposed MOPMILP model. Two numerical examples, is conducted to evaluate the performance and efficiency of the proposed integrated approach for agile supply chain network design under uncertainty.