Multi-objective inventory routing problem: A stochastic model to consider profit, service level and green criteria

The Inventory Routing Problem has been mainly studied in recent decades under an economic performance perspective. In this paper, we develop a multi-objective mathematical framework for the IRP to link: (i) the economic performance, (ii) the achieved server level in terms of shortage and delivery delays and (iii) the environmental footprint. The framework developed addresses the uncertainty by considering fuzzy distributions for certain problem inputs, such as the demand and the transportation costs. We show the negative impact on the economic performance when service level targets are exogenously chosen without coordination with the logistics components (inventory and distribution).