Supply Chain Flexibility Mathematical Modeling using Goal Programming

Due to the changes in production and market conditions, companies are facing many pressures. One of the ways of confronting with these pressures is the concept of supply chain and increasing its flexibility to satisfy different needs of customers. Despite the importance of supply chain flexibility, lack of appropriate analytical models to explain the relationship between the flexibility in a system and the performance of overall system is still recognized. Therefore, in this study a mathematical model of supply chain flexibility has been presented. This research is applied and of the descriptive research types. This study is done in two phases; dimensions detection and modeling. Identified dimensions in the first phase are labor flexibility, machine flexibility, routing and process flexibility. They are important dimensions for assess each three levels; provide, produce and assemble the entire supply chain. The result of the second phase was the design of a mathematical model for each three levels, separately, but dependent on other levels by objective function. Their limitations are defined by identified dimensions in the first phase.