Supply chain optimization of continuous process industries with sustainability considerations

Today's optimization of continuous process industries should be exerted on the scope of whole enterprise supply chain, from the raw material purchase stage to product distribution stage, with sustainability considerations. Sustainability involves the multiple objectives of social, economic, resources and environmental sustainability; some of them are conflicting. In this study, goal programming (GP) model is proposed to address this multi-objective problem with the integration of non-relaxable constraints and relaxable constraints. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP), a multi-objective decision making method, is used to evaluate the priorities of goals and weights of deviation variables. The application of this approach is illustrated through a case study on sustainable supply chain optimization and scheduling of a petrochemical complex. The results obtained show that this approach is a viable tool and offers good communication with decision-maker. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.