A New Mathematical Model for the Integration of Production and Distribution in Mobile Centers

Abstract

In today's competitive environment, having the best sequence of operations for production and distribution activities is a basic need for survival. As a result, one of the major challenges in fixed supply chain systems is unnecessary transportation costs and the inability to meet customer demand as quickly as possible. In order to meet these challenges, factories and mobile equipment have been considered in this study, and have recently been used in several industries, including pharmaceutical, chemical, and dairy. In the course of this study, a novel mathematical model was put forward for an integrated production and distribution scheduling problem taking into account some real-world features, focusing on reducing customer waiting time and also reducing production costs. A small-scale problem was resolved to check the model’s accuracy. The accuracy of the model is affirmed given the example and its solution acquired from GAMS software. The results of the study prove the effectiveness of this model in reducing customer waiting time and production costs and also demonstrate that the model has the capacity to be utilized by all organizations that produce and distribute perishable products, including dairy and pharmaceutical products, chemical compounds and masks during the Coronavirus pandemic.