In this paper, a novel multi-phase mathematical approach is presented for the design of a complex supply chain network. From the point of network design, customer demands, and for maximum overall utility, the important issues are to find suitable and quality companies, and to decide upon an appropriate production/distribution strategy. The proposed approach is based on the genetic algorithm (GA), the analytical hierarchy process (AHP), and the multiattribute utility theory (MAUT) to satisfy simultaneously the preferences of the suppliers and the customers at each level in the network. A case study with a good quality solution is provided to confirm the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach. Finally, to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach, a comparative numerical experiment is performed by using the proposed approach and the common single-phase genetic algorithm (SGA). Empirical analysis results demonstrate that the proposed approach can outperform the SGA in partner selection and production/distribution planning for network design.

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Virtual integration (VI) offers a way to make manufacturing systems more agile and competitive. VI integrates the production resources of many manufacturing systems (partners) efficiently, and that leads to a rapid response to market changes. Based on the VI concept these partners throughout the world will form a virtual enterprise (VE). Thus to select partners is the essential and the most important issue. The main objective of this paper is to develop a partner selection and productiondistribution planning with the novel partner selection model, based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology, multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) and integer programming (IP), for the VI with multiple criteria. The AHP and MAUT methods are use to assess and set weights for each partner candidate and the IP model applies these weights to find the optimal partners from the potential ones and provide the suitable production-distribution plan to the elective partners. Finally, a case study has been provided to substantiate a feasible quality solution of the proposed model.

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