抄録
Today's competitive business environment has resulted in increasing cooperation among individual companies as members of a supply chain. Accordingly, third party logistics service providers (3PLs) are playing an increasing role especially in transportation and warehousing operations. In addition, increasing opportunities for cost savings or customer satisfaction from returned products prompts 3PLs to get involved in reverse logistics operations. Consequently, these 3PLs must operate supply chains for a number of different clients who want to improve their logistics operations for both forward and reverse flows. However, in the past, the design of distribution networks has been independently conducted with respect to either forward or backward flows. Thus, this paper proposes a mixed integer-programming model for the design of an integrated distribution network and then illustrates the impact of forward and reverse flows for 3PLs.
