An optimisation model for sustainable multi-commodity transportation planning

¹ Department of Operational Research, University of Delhi, New Delhi 110007, India
² Queen’s Business School, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT9 5EE, UK

^* Corresponding author: c.vincent@qub.ac.uk

Received: 28 June 2022
Accepted: 21 February 2024

Abstract

This paper aims to establish a supply chain model that significantly reduces economic and environmental costs. It comprises all activities related to procurement, production, and distribution planning. The proposed multi-objective multi-commodity optimisation model deals with the four conflicting objectives of reducing costs and emissions and choosing top-priority suppliers and the most efficient vehicles. We apply an integrated AHP (analytic hierarchy process) and TOPSIS (technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution) technique to determine the weights of suppliers, depending on three indices of criteria, alternatives, and raw material. This paper proposes a cross-efficiency evaluation method using data envelopment analysis (DEA) to ensure that the cross-evaluation of different types of vehicles for evaluating peers is as consistent as possible. The mutually contradictory objectives give rise to several Pareto-optimal solutions. The optimal compromise solutions are found using a lexicographic goal programming technique. We present a real-world case to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, followed by numerical comparisons and additional insights.