Herbal Plant’ Supply Chain Network Design in Hamadan Province, By Considering Product Quality And Supply Chain Benefit

Due to diverse ecosystems in Iran, the country has been one of important centers of supplying herbal plants. Hence, the context of herbal plants can act as a valuable resource for increasing non-oil revenue. Current research has investigated how to design a herbal plant’s supply chain network in view points of business and customers. Therefore supply chain of herbal plants of India, Africa, United States, and Iran has been studied. Iran’s Foeniculum vulare Mill herbal plant has a remarkable share in trade market. Razan city in Hamadan province is one of the major planting centers of it. In this article, modeling of supply chain network considers 4 levels which are purchasing material, processing, distribution and customer. Modeling is done by bi- objective MILP to increase two objectives of profit and quality. Research method is quantitative. Outputs of network design are location of processing and distribution centers, also assignment of distribution centers to customers, determining delivering quantities and different transportion modes selection between all active nodes of a network in different levels of the supply chain. Main innovation of the research is application of quality featurs of herbal plants as quality degredation rate. Validation of the model is assessed by real data in the case study. Sensitivity analysis on the results shows that the modeling has the validity and reliability. Effective solutions of the model are shown in a Pareto boundery. The results in one selected point are described. Results of the research can be used for agricultural products with limited shelf life and constant degredation rate and also for herbal plants in priority in national document of herbal plants programming. In order to develope the research, uncertainty of supply and demand parameters can be considered, also multi products supply chain and network of exporting herbal plants can be considered in future studies.