Modeling-based Design of Strategic Supply Chain Networks for Aircraft Manufacturing

摘要

The aerospace supply chain network has evolved and become more complex over the years. New methods are needed to design and analyze the system, and to establish the interactions between aircraft (product) design and supply chain (process) design. This paper aims to introduce a strategic multi-product, multi-period design model for the manufacturing of an aircraft wing-box with a planning horizon of the full program duration. The supply chain systems consist of a number of external suppliers, candidate manufacturing sites, and a number of customers at fixed locations. The design model is a mixed-integer linear programming optimization routine that minimizes the total time-discounted network cost. The model generates a system configuration that specifies the location and capacity of the manufacturing sites, the material flow, and the transportation routes within the network. The model is implemented using open-source tools, and has a comprehensive and flexible data structure to support the decision-making process during the early aircraft design stages.