The design of a responsive sustainable supply chain network under uncertainty

Copyright © 2015 Springer. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00170-015-6967-8There is growing interest among researchers in the concept of sustainability. Large commercial corporations have also shown responsibility for preserving planet and people while maintaining profit. Our present paper is motivated by the three P’s—people, planet, and profit. In our paper, we have attempted to develop a responsive sustainable supply chain network which can respond to a certain degree of uncertainty due to uncontrollable forces. We have developed a model using robust optimization based on three well-known robust counterpart optimization formulations. Finally, this paper compares the results of the three formulations using different test scenarios and parameter-sensitive analysis in terms of final output, CPU time, the level of conservatism, the degree of closeness to the ideal solution, the degree of balance involved in developing a compromise solution, and satisfaction degree. Two further questions related to environmental dimensions and social dimensions have been investigated using an appreciative inquiry, a quasi-ethnographic study. In this way, we have embraced mixed research design to address our research questions. We have extended past research by incorporating uncertainty in a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model and qualitative research methods to fill the voids. We have concluded our research with limitations of our present study and outlined further research directions