Sustainable supply chain planning and optimization trade-offs between cost, GHG emissions and service level

Sustainable supply chain planning plays an important role to achieve sustainable operations and logistics. Sustainable supply chain performance is based on economic, environmental and social impacts. In this paper, we present a multiobjective decision making framework for sustainable supply chain optimization. We consider a supply chain network consisting of production plants, distribution centers and retailers (customers). A multi-product and multi-period planning model is proposed. Sustainability is evaluated based on three performances: cost, GHG emissions, and service level. We use this model in test case of Frozen Food industry. Preliminary experimentation demonstrates that the three objectives are conflicting. However, just in time distribution might increase total cost but reduce GHG emissions due to the best control of inventories at distribution centers and retailers. Indeed, the energy consumption caused by storing pallet of frozen food decrease. On the other hand, total cost optimization lead to service level decrease with more efficient transportation (Full track Load Delivery) and reduce GHG emission of transportation activities. Finally, the decision making model helps to identify the trade-off between the three conflicting objectives, and take the best decisions to achieve sustainability objectives of the supply chain.