Presenting a New Approach toward Locating Optimal Decoupling Point in Supply Chains

This article attempts to cope with one of the most vital strategic decisions in the supply chain design in terms of manufacturing context. The issues of finding the best position of Customer Order Decoupling Point (CODP) in a production line have been taken into consideration by many researchers in recent years, but locating CODP along a supply chain has not yet been completely investigated. Here we present a novel combined DEA/AHP method to tackle the problem of positioning CODP in a supply chain. Then in order to prove the applicability of the proposed structure in a real case, the model is implemented in a food processing supply chain.