Abstract Trends like globalization, shorter product life-cycles, and cost reduction strategies in the global business environment have exposed many supply chains to various risks. Disruptions are one of the supply chain risks that can interrupt product flow, delay customer deliveries, and reduce supply chain revenues considerably. Prior planning for disruptions could greatly alleviate these consequences. A method to cope with disruptions is to use product substitution in the case of a product shortage. In this research, the supply chain of a livestock-drug distribution company in Iran, facing demand disruptions, has been chosen as a case study. For this purpose, a multi-stage stochastic integer programming model is proposed and solved using a customized progressive hedging algorithm. Moreover, the effect of uncertainty on the supply chain performance is measured using the value of the stochastic solution (VSS) and the expected value of perfect information (EVPI) metrics. Based on the different instances of the problem solved, the VSS metric shows that modeling and solving the proposed stochastic model could enhance the company profit by about 3.27 percent on average. In addition, the EVPI metric demonstrates that planning and investing in proactive demand management could enhance the profit up to 9.42 percent. Finally, analyses indicate that when dealing with increased demand uncertainty levels, the importance of using the proposed method increases as the profitability of the company decreases.

中文翻译：

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一种通过产品替代降低供应链风险的多阶段随机规划方法

摘要 全球化、更短的产品生命周期和全球商业环境中的成本降低策略等趋势使许多供应链面临各种风险。中断是供应链风险之一，可能会中断产品流、延迟客户交付并显着减少供应链收入。预先计划中断可以大大减轻这些后果。应对中断的一种方法是在产品短缺的情况下使用产品替代。在这项研究中，伊朗一家牲畜药品分销公司的供应链面临需求中断，被选为案例研究。为此，使用定制的渐进对冲算法提出并解决了多阶段随机整数规划模型。而且，不确定性对供应链绩效的影响是使用随机解决方案的价值 (VSS) 和完美信息的预期价值 (EVPI) 指标来衡量的。根据所解决问题的不同实例，VSS 指标表明，对建议的随机模型进行建模和求解可以将公司利润平均提高约 3.27%。此外，EVPI 指标表明，对主动需求管理进行规划和投资可以将利润提高 9.42%。最后，分析表明，在处理增加的需求不确定性水平时，随着公司盈利能力的降低，使用所提出方法的重要性增加。根据所解决问题的不同实例，VSS 指标表明，对建议的随机模型进行建模和求解可以将公司利润平均提高约 3.27%。此外，EVPI 指标表明，对主动需求管理进行规划和投资可以将利润提高 9.42%。最后，分析表明，在处理增加的需求不确定性水平时，随着公司盈利能力的降低，使用所提出方法的重要性增加。根据所解决问题的不同实例，VSS 指标表明，对建议的随机模型进行建模和求解可以将公司利润平均提高约 3.27%。此外，EVPI 指标表明，对主动需求管理进行规划和投资可以将利润提高 9.42%。最后，分析表明，在处理增加的需求不确定性水平时，随着公司盈利能力的降低，使用所提出方法的重要性增加。