Hamid Shahbandarzadeh

Background: Choosing the right location of distribution centers will play an important role in increasing the profits of producers. Considering the facilities of the hub to serve the demand points, it is done by reducing transportation costs and increasing efficiency. Aim: In the current research, the aim is to present a hierarchical hub location model for the distribution of the products of a manufacturer in Fars province, among the cities in the centers of the provinces of Iran. Each of the hubs is considered a demand node and a limited capacity is considered for each one. Also, the total transportation time of the products should not exceed the average total allowed time. Methodology: First, according to the previous researches and research assumptions, the mathematical model will be presented and then it will be solved using genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization. Conclusions: The results showed that both genetic meta-heuristic algorithm and particle swarm optimization meta-heuristic algorithm are able to achieve optimal solutions, but the cost obtained from the particle swarm optimization algorithm is 9.76% lower than the cost obtained from the genetic algorithm. In this case, the optimal network was presented considering 2 primary hubs and 6 secondary hubs and how to allocate between them. Finally, the total cost of transportation considering direct shipping compare with the cost in the case of hierarchical hubs. it was shown that the hierarchical model can save 19.14% in the transportation costs of the studied sample.