Abstract
We have applied the meta-heuristic method termed Hybrid Tabu Search to solve a hierarchical logistics optimization problem under uncertain demands. For this purpose, we have formulated the problem by employing the idea from flexibility analysis. There, first, we classified the decision variables into two kinds depending on their generic natures, e.g., hard one like facility location not easy to change after decided once and soft one like distribution route possible to change somewhat according to the demand fluctuation. Then the proposed method can derive a flexible design that can cope certainly with the worst case only by changing the distribution routes while keeping the performance at higher level in the nominal case. Through numerical experiments, we confirmed effectiveness of the proposed method.
