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The purpose of this paper is to investigate design alternatives for pump‐included water distribution networks considering sustainability and reliability aspects. The aim is to demonstrate that CO₂ emissions could be reduced at a reasonable cost. The paper also investigates the trade‐offs between cost and reliability of water distribution networks.

An existing genetic algorithm optimization tool is customized in this research to perform multi‐objective optimization with various objectives and constraints. The developed model is demonstrated using a benchmark water distribution network.

The results from this research suggest that CO₂ emissions from water distribution networks could be reduced at a reasonable cost by choosing better objectives during the design stage. High system reliability could also be ensured for the lifetime by paying reasonable additional cost. This research presents various design alternatives for an engineer to choose from.

The design of water distribution networks is a computationally complex process and often requires significant CPU time to arrive at an optimal solution. This problem is significant in the case of larger networks, especially when all the failed states need to be simulated. Simpler measures of reliability could be adopted in the future.

Although a significant amount of research had been undertaken in the area of optimal water distribution network design, only limited research includes environmental impacts as a design objective. This paper not only includes environmental aspects but also considers reliability. The model proposed in this research is a useful tool for engineers for considering various alternatives before choosing the best design.

Freight network planning and the application of distribution innovations are popular fields of research on sustainable urban logistics. However, considerable research on freight network design lacks a comprehensive consideration of the application of distribution innovations. This observation implies that sustainable urban freight research appears highly fragmented in topics of network design and distribution innovations. From the perspective of long-term planning, this situation possibly serves as a barrier to further promotion of sustainability. The objective of this paper is to analyze existing research gaps of literature to further promote the sustainability of urban logistics systems from a future perspective.

This paper employs a systematic literature review (SLR) method, which covers 164 papers and research works published in 2013–2018. The article corpus involved the innovative schemes of freight network design and the emerging delivery concepts in cities. Based on an analysis of articles' relevance, the most significant research contributions on both city logistics network design and exploitation of distribution innovations are detected.

This paper has found four research gaps in aspects of network design and distribution innovations. To respond to these gaps, we propose the research framework of sustainable and flexible future urban freight planning (SFFUFP) based on trends of city development, while discussing further research direction on urban freight planning.

The authors have found four research gaps in aspects of both urban freight network design and distribution innovations in which scholars could be encouraged to contribute. The research framework of SFFUFP can further promote sustainable urban logistics from a view of future management.

The purpose of this paper is to systematically and critically review the extant literature on the design of global production and distribution networks to identify gaps in the literature and identify future research opportunities. The design aspects deal with strategic and structural decisions such as: opening or closing of manufacturing plants or distribution centres, selection of locations for manufacturing or warehousing, and making substantial capacity changes in manufacturing or distribution.

The authors examine the peer-reviewed literature on global production and distribution networks written in English. The search strategy is based on selected keywords and databases. The authors identify 109 articles from 1974 to 2012.

The authors categorize the literature according to research methodology: case studies, conceptual modelling, surveys, and mathematical modelling. The amount of literature up to 2,000 is rather sparse, while there is a positive trend from 2,000 and onwards. The content analysis shows that different research methodologies focus on different but complementary aspects. The authors propose a research agenda for further research on design of global production and distribution networks.

The authors identify research opportunities related to complementary actor perspectives, extended supply chains that explicitly include transportation and suppliers, contingency factors, and new perspectives such as facility roles within production and distribution networks.

This paper is to the author’s knowledge the first broad review that investigates the design aspects of the interrelationships between production and distribution facilities as well as transportation in global production and distribution networks across multiple research methodologies.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between the main decisions for designing distribution centers (DCs) and the contextual characteristics of the distribution networks.

Experts were surveyed and responses analyzed quantitatively through multivariate data techniques. This study considered four contextual characteristics that were deemed as influential for DC design: types of routes in the distribution network, quantity of DCs, distribution network levels and company size.

This paper evidenced which decisions are affected by each contextual characteristic encompassed in this study. This paper identified that the characteristic types of route in the distribution network must be carefully considered, as it had the greatest amount of associations with the decisions for designing a DC.

Despite its importance, most studies on design of DCs disregard the effect of the context in which DCs are inserted. This research provides arguments to support decision-making process of DCs design, increasing assertiveness of their planning. This work fulfills a literature gap by empirically examining the effect of contextual variables on the decisions related to DC design. Regarding practice, this paper addressed a fundamental issue for managers looking to design a DC, as it evidenced how contextual characteristics impact the decision-making.

Relief item distribution to victims is a key activity during disaster response. Currently many humanitarian organizations follow simple guidelines based on experience to assess need and distribute relief supplies. However, the interviews with practitioners suggest a problem in efficiency in relief distribution efforts. The purpose of this paper is to develop a model and solution methodology that can estimate relief center (RC) performance, measured by waiting time for victims and throughput, for any RC design and analyze the impact of key design decisions on these performance measures.

Interviews with practitioners and current practice guidelines are used to understand relief distribution and a queuing network model is used to represent the relief distribution. Finally, the model is applied to data from the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

The findings identify that dissipating congestion created by crowds, varying item assignment decisions to points of distribution, limiting the physical RC capacity to control congestion and using triage queue to balance distribution times, are effective strategies that can improve RC performance.

This research bases the RC designs on Federal Emergency Management Agency guidelines and assumes a certain area and volunteer availability.

This paper contributes to humanitarian logistics by discussing useful insights that can impact how relief agencies set up and operate RCs. It also contributes to the queuing literature by deriving analytic solutions for the steady state probabilities of finite capacity, state dependent queues with blocking.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the environmental impact of distribution network design.

Typical distribution networks are identified and modeled through interviews with logistics companies in Korea. CO₂ emission is calculated for the distribution network models to evaluate the environmental impact of different network designs. In addition, economic and customer service performances are evaluated to provide realistic and balanced solutions to supply chain managers.

It is suggested that hybrid networks combining Hub-and-Spoke (HS) and Point-to-Point (PP) networks with a small number of sub-terminals are the most effective in both environmental and customer service aspects, whereas HS network is the most cost-effective.

The analysis in this study is based on certain assumptions, and hence full application of these results to specific cases is limited. The combination of PP network with HS network is suggested, forming a hybrid network, and CO₂ mitigation policies need to consider support schemes that can influence a firm’s decision making in relation to network design.

Little attention, however, has been paid to the environmental impact of distribution network design in the exiting literature. This study is a rare attempt at evaluating the environmental impact of distribution network design and may provide valuable implications to policy-makers and practitioners in logistics and manufacturing companies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a new modelling framework for distribution network strategy and to study how various transfer-pricing schemes cope with stochastic demand under different countries tax policies.

Use is made of real options to quantify the available options for supply chain network design. The application of real options approach relies on three main conditions, such as the existence of uncertainty (market), flexibility (different network design) and irreversibility (investments) in the decision process.

Evaluation of the potential impact of changes in local tax policies on long-run plant and distribution centers location decisions. A more intensive tax regime tends to promote changes in the distribution network that support multinational companies. In high uncertain markets, the options to change the network are more attractive – uncertainty is linked with an increase in flexibility.

The present study provides decision makers with a useful tool for supporting the design of global logistics networks, considering different scenarios and therefore determines a more after-taxes profitable logistics network configuration.

Integrate financial issues while studying different scenarios for supply chain network designs. It presents a model that focus on distribution network design considering transfer-pricing methods as decision variables and aiming after-taxes bottom-line results maximization. There are relatively few “reported” implementations of global profit maximization models for large-scale networks. Thus, we believe that the implementation of global profit maximization models represents a potentially significant unrealized opportunity worthy of serious consideration by many firms.

Distribution network design (DND) has become an important strategic decision for supply chain managers with increasing competitive nature of the industry nowadays. The purpose of this paper is to propose a web-based decision support system (DSS) for fuzzy distribution network optimization. For this purpose, a web-based DSS using fuzzy linear programming model is proposed to solve DND problem under uncertainty and a framework is created to optimize a distribution network.

In this study, the fuzziness in distribution network optimization is addressed. Fuzzy linear programming is used in a DSS to consider the uncertain and imprecise data. A web-based DSS architecture is presented. Furthermore, as an application, distribution network optimization is conducted for a company in the ceramics industry.

By using this DSS, the optimal transshipment amounts in the distribution network and the required facility and distribution centers can be determined for different fuzziness levels. In fact, for different uncertainty levels of input parameters, the planner can understand the range of optimum network planning costs. Based on the results of this study, planners will be able to decide how to develop the distribution network under uncertain demand.

Reviewing previous research in the related literature revealed that there are no studies presenting a web-based DSS using fuzzy linear programming model to solve this type of problems under uncertainty.

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, it classifies research on distribution network design (DND) according to the methodologies adopted and themes tackled. Second, it discusses the main implications for practitioners. Finally, it proposes a few promising directions for future research.

The review is based on 126 papers published from 1972 to 2013 in international peer-reviewed journals in the Business, Management and Economics field. The academic papers have been analyzed and classified based on the main research methods used and the themes tackled.

It was found that most of the earlier research adopted quantitative models to deal with different decisions on DND, whereas the number of conceptual papers, proposing frameworks and classifications, is still limited. In all, 42 factors that affect DND have been identified and classified into five groups, and the relationships between factor groups and strategic decisions have been investigated. This study revealed that some important areas have not received much attention in the literature and, therefore, three potential directions for further research have been identified.

Due to the extremely large number of papers on DND, it is possible that a few papers may have inadvertently been missed. Despite the possibility of not being all-inclusive, the authors firmly believe that the general picture presented in this paper is precise and trustworthy.

This review offers valuable insights for practitioners: a clear understanding of the main decisions related to DND; a comprehensive analysis of the main factors that affect the distribution network structure; a clear understanding of the relationships between factor groups and key decisions; and a guide to the models that can be used to support the different phases of DND.

Discusses the design of large‐scale distribution networks which entails taking decisions on a large number of issues that are all closely interrelated, making it difficult to develop a competitive distribution strategy. Many support systems for distribution planning have been developed, but, they do not facilitate a coherent approach to the design process. Presents a logistic planning system that provides dedicated support for all issues involved in distribution planning. The foundation of which is an integrated planning support framework. Proposes that small models dedicated to only part of the total design process provide the best support for logistic planning and that such models encapsulated in a framework lead to optimal system design. Suggests that when the support system is applied to strategic/tactical distribution planning, the design process requires less time and less expert capacity, while resulting in a more competitive logistic supply chain.