Capacity-expansion planning is a class of strategic supply-chain problems that has received
extensive attention from both chemical engineering and operations research communities since
the late 1950s. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no previous work has so far addressed
these problems on a global scale while accounting for the effect of multiple key regulatory factors.
This paper fills this gap in the capacity-planning research using a four-prong approach. First,
it introduces and classifies key regulatory factors that can significantly influence the earnings
or business operations of multinational companies. Second, it presents a new deterministic
capacity-expansion-planning model in which sizes of expansions or new facilities are variables
and domestic and international regulatory factors are explicitly taken into account. Third, it
extends the deterministic model to address important issues such as distribution centers,
outsourcing, and uncertainty in problem parameters. Last, it demonstrates the importance and
effect of incorporating multiple regulatory factors in capacity-expansion-planning models using
illustrative examples.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.