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Inefficient road transportation causes unnecessary costs and emissions. This problem is even more severe in fresh food transportation, where temperature control is used to guarantee product quality. On a route with multiple stops, the quality of the transported products could be negatively influenced by the door openings and consequent temperature fluctuations. In this study, we quantify the effects of multi-stop transportation on food quality. To realistically model and quantify food quality, we develop a time-and temperature-dependent kinetic model for a vehicle routing problem. The proposed extensions of the vehicle routing problem enable quantification of quality decay on a route. The model is illustrated using a case study of cooperative routing, and our results show that longer, multi-stop routes can negatively influence food quality, especially for products delivered later in the route, and when the products are very temperature-sensitive and the outside temperature is high. Minimising quality loss results in multiple routes with fewer stops per route, whereas minimising costs or emissions results in longer routes. By adjusting driving speed, unloading rate, cooling rate, and by setting a quality threshold level, the negative quality consequences of multi-stop routes can be mitigated.

Objective: The objective of this research is to propose methodology that can be used to benchmark current diets based on their nutrient intakes and to provide guidelines for improving less healthy diets in a way that is acceptable for the studied population.Design: We discuss important limitations of current diet models that use optimization techniques to design healthier and acceptable diets. We illustrate how data envelopment analysis could be used to overcome such limitations, and we describe mathematical models that can be used to calculate not only healthier but also acceptable diets.Setting: We used data from the Nutrition Questionnaires plus dataset of habitual diets of a general population of adult men and women in The Netherlands (n 1735).Participants: Adult population.Results: We calculated healthier diets with substantial higher intakes of protein, fibre, Fe, Ca, K, Mg and vitamins, and substantially lower intakes of Na, saturated fats and added sugars. The calculated diets are combinations of current diets of individuals that belong to the same age/gender group and comprise of food itemintakes in proportions observed in the sample.Conclusions: The proposed methodology enables the benchmarking of existing diets and provides a framework for proposing healthier alternative diets that resemble the current diet in terms of foods intake as much as possible.

The continuously increasing container throughput has created complex operational problems for port operations and port-hinterland transportation. Increase in negative externalities such as air pollution and road congestion are examples of challenging issues. Consolidation of cargo/container flows may help to alleviate the situation by better utilizing the means of transport and containers. Using analytical models for three scenarios – only-trucking (no-consolidation), container consolidation and combined container/cargo consolidation – we discuss the conditions under which the consolidation of flows can be beneficial. The results imply that shipment distance and type of cargo are important factors that affect the performance of flow consolidation in port-hinterland logistics.

Data and information flows in agro-food supply chains have exponentially increased due to diverse embedded tracking/sensing devices, ubiquitous usage of computer systems, and increasing data/information sharing among firms. This promises a huge potential value when the data are gathered and turned into information/knowledge that can be used to make better decisions. Focusing on agro-food logistics management, this PhD thesis investigates how to utilize available data/information in agro-food supply chains to improve logistics processes. Using the Dutch floriculture supply chain network as the case study platform, this research particularly deals with logistics challenges caused by the increasing trend of customer orders in the agro-food sector: high frequency, numerous order lines of small volumes, and short required delivery lead-times. The first part of the thesis helps readers gain a better understanding of the value of data/information in supply chain decision-making. First, it presents a generic framework to assess the value of information (VOI) in supply chain decisions along the four primary dimensions: “supply chain decisions”, “information”, “modelling approach”, and “supply chain context”. Second, it extends the “supply chain decisions” and “information” dimensions to propose a multi-level framework that explains how data and big data are actually linked to supply chain decisions at different levels, i.e., short-term or long-term and individual-firm level or supply-chain level. The second part of the thesis applies the VOI framework and the multi-level framework to the case of the Dutch floriculture sector. At the individual-firm level, the thesis examines the uses of common information types at agro-food suppliers and crossdocking facilities. For suppliers, the thesis proposes a data-driven process redesign, which uses historical customer orders to redesign the order fulfilment process for a higher delivery service level and a lower operational cost. For

Road transportation generates significant costs for firms that deliver and collect products. Next to that, it results in emissions. Food supply chains cause additional emissions because of the extra energy needed to guarantee product quality. Moreover, current transportation systems are inefficient since the available capacity is not optimally used. Cooperation between food supply chain actors could provide opportunities to reduce costs and emissions and improve eco-efficiency, which is defined as solutions for which it is impossible to improve the environmental objective without worsening the economic objective. In food supply chains, it is also important to guarantee food quality. However, reducing costs, emissions, and quality decay do not always go hand in hand, and trade-offs need to be made. Moreover, despite the benefits, companies hesitate to implement cooperation because it might bring advantages to competitors and they find it difficult to agree on gain sharing. To find out how cooperation can improve eco-efficiency in food logistics, we need decision support models that can capture these complexities. Therefore, the main research question that this thesis aims to answer is: Which decision support models can be used to design eco-efficient logistics cooperation in food supply chains? All studies in this PhD thesis are based on a case study on a Dutch retail cooperative, where several smaller retail organisations cooperate by forming a buying organisation. By jointly purchasing their products, they can negotiate a lower unit price. The retailers currently hire different logistics service providers to pick up their orders from their shared distribution centre and bring them to their own distribution centre. From there, they distribute the products to their supermarket outlets. Currently, the retailers arrange their logistics individually, but they are considering to cooperate to reduce costs, emissions and quality decay. In this thesis, the effects of differ

The food industry is confronted with a pressure to reduce waste and to make agreements on donating surplus food to charitable organizations. Charitable organizations such as food banks and soup kitchens can use these donations in preparing food parcels or meals for their clients. For soup kitchens, donation management is strongly influencing menu planning, and conversely, menu planning considerations have a strong impact on donation management decisions. To make the best use of (mostly highly perishable) food donations, we develop an MILP model for integrated donation management and menu planning that proposes a menu plan and suggests which (part of the) donations to accept. The combination of menu planning and donation management is essential for soup kitchens, but has not been studied before.The model is used to assess the impact of contracts on a strategic or tactical level, and captures operational decision making due to the integration of donation management and menu planning. To deal with meal variety considerations and to resemble planning practices, the developed model is solved in a rolling horizon. The results show that (i) the use of donations reduces overall costs for the soup kitchen; (ii) despite the short shelf life of donations, most donations can be used efficiently; and (iii) meal variety can be easily ensured and food donations increase this variety. In addition to the benefits for soup kitchens, the approach has implications for waste reduction in food supply chains, by structural/contractual donations of surplus food by retailers.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a structured overview of the value of information in different supply chain decisions and to identify a research agenda based on the current state of research on the topic. The paper uses the systematic literature review methodology to review journal articles published in the 12-year period from 2006 to 2017. Each selected study is analyzed using a rigorous review framework of four primary dimensions, including “supply chain decisions”, “information”, “modelling approach”, and “context”. The review of articles shows that the current literature is rich in assessing the value of information in inventory decisions, yet insufficient in other supply chain areas such as facility, transportation, sourcing, and pricing. In addition, the value of information is subject to contextual supply chain parameters and varies in accordance with the characteristics of the information (such as accuracy, timeliness, and completeness). Furthermore, the focus of the existing literature is on “information availability” in supply chain decisions, and the impact of important information characteristics on the value of information has not been studied extensively. The research on information timeliness and its influence on supply chain performance is especially limited. Based on the discussion and results of our review, a research agenda is offered and sample research questions are discussed.

Milk production has a major impact on the environment and competes increasingly for scarce resources. As the demand for milk is expected to increase, these issues are likely to worsen. Benchmarking the environmental performance of dairy farming systems offers the opportunity to identify best farm practices and to provide guidance for reducing the environmental impact. Currently, benchmarking is hampered by the lack of an effective method that results in a set of indicators that is easily quantifiable and detects variations in environmental performance between farms. The aim of this thesis, therefore, was to develop a sound method to benchmark the environmental performance of dairy farming systems. This thesis focuses is on specialized dairy farming systems in Europe. The first challenge in benchmarking the environmental performance of dairy farming systems is to select a set of indicators that are relevant, measurable, valid, timely and understandable. Environmental indicators can be derived from various approaches, including a nutrient balance (NB) approach and a life cycle assessment (LCA). An NB is generally applied at farm level, and yields indicators that are relatively easy to quantify and communicate. We found that an NB at farm level can be used to benchmark dairy farming systems, if differences in on-farm losses are large and off-farm losses are relatively unimportant. Only if farms differ largely in the amount and/or type of purchased inputs, such as feed, the farm-based NB should be extended to a chain based NB or an LCA. An LCA, however, requires extensive data information, which can be difficult to collect. We, therefore, explored correlations between eight commonly used NB and LCA indicators with the system boundary from cradle-to-farm gate. We found that a set indicators, consisting of the nitrogen surplus, the phosphorus surplus, land use and energy use can be used as a proxy to benchmark the environmental performance of dairy farming systems, repres

Green waste, consisting of leaves, wood cuttings from pruning, and grass collected from parks and gardens, is a source of biomass that can be used for material and energy valorization. Until recently, the EU-Waste Directive 2009/28/EC allowed green waste to be used as feedstock only for compost. This paper presents a framework for examining the most sustainable processing options for green waste valorization in terms of the triple bottom line, People–Planet–Profit. A mathematical model is presented that optimizes profit, as well as environmental and social impact. Four processing options are compared and analyzed: composting, partial separation of wood cuttings prior to composting, partial separation of chopped wood cuttings in the sieve overflow after composting, and a combination of the last two options. Computational results for a Belgian case demonstrate that the optimal sustainable recovery solution is to separate a fraction of the wood cuttings in the sieve overflow for use as green energy feedstock. Additionally, if sufficiently large subsidies are available to separate wood cuttings prior to composting, the optimal solution shifts to one of partially separating the cuttings both prior to composting and in the sieve overflow, and then using the combined cuttings for energy valorization. Whenever cuttings are partially separated the remainder of the green waste is composted.

Although there is contradicting evidence on the impact of a company’s proactive environmental strategy on its environmental performance, recent research shows such an approach can indeed make a difference.

The worldwide economic growth of the last century has given rise to a vast consumption of goods while globalization has led to large streams of goods all over the world. The production, transportation, storage and consumption of all these goods, however, have created large environmental problems. Today, global warming, created by large scale emissions of greenhouse gasses, is a top environmental concern. Governments, action groups and companies are asking for measures to counter this threat. Operations research has a long tradition in improving operations and especially in reducing costs. In this paper, we present a review that highlights the contribution of operations research to green logistics, which involves the integration of environmental aspects in logistics. We give a sketch of the present and possible developments, focussing on design, planning and control in a supply chain for transportation, inventory of products and facility decisions. While doing this, we also indicate several areas where environmental aspects could be included in OR models for logistics.

Remanufacturing has long been perceived as an environmentally-friendly initiative. The question of how remanufacturing moderates the relation between environmental impact and economic returns is still unanswered, however. In this paper, we focus our attention on the electronics industry. In particular, we take a close look at remanufacturing within the mobile and personal computers industries. We analyze whether remanufacturing for such products substantially mitigates the energy used in the life-cycle of these products, or whether as in most electrical equipments, it can only marginally contribute to such reduction. Using both process-based and economic input-output data, we show that remanufacturing significantly reduces total energy consumption. Furthermore, we test the ubiquitous hypothesis that the market of remanufactured products is composed by products that have been downgraded and are therefore sold for prices below the average price of the new equipments. Using data from 9,900 real transactions obtained from eBay, we show that this assumption is true for personal computers, but not for mobiles. More importantly, despite the fact that remanufactured products may suffer downgrading, and that consumers therefore command a high discount for them, the economic output per energy unit used is still higher for remanufactured products. We thus conclude that remanufacturing for these two products is not only environmentally friendly, but also eco-efficient.

We address the value of RFID technology enabled information to manage perishables in the context of a supplier that sells a random lifetime product subject to stochastic demand and lost sales. The product's lifetime is largely determined by the time and temperature history in the supply chain. We compare two information cases to a Base case in which the product's time and temperature history is unknown and therefore its shelf life is uncertain. In the first information case, the time and temperature history is known and therefore the remaining shelf life is also known at the time of receipt. The second information case builds on the first case such that the supplier now has visibility up the supply chain to know the remaining shelf life of inventory available for replenishment. We formulate these three different cases as Markov decision processes, introduce well performing heuristics of more practical relevance, and evaluate the value of information through an extensive simulation using representative, real world supply chain parameters.

Recent literature on sustainable logistics networks points to two important questions: (i) How to spot the preferred solution(s) balancing environmental and business concerns? (ii) How to improve the understanding of the trade-offs between these two dimensions? We posit that a complete exploration of the efficient frontier and trade-offs between profitability and environmental impacts are particularly suitable to answer these two questions. In order to deal with the exponential number of basic efficient points in the frontier, we propose a formulation that performs in exponential time for the number of objective functions only. We illustrate our findings by designing a complex recycling logistics network in Germany.

The primary objective of closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) is to reap the maximum economic benefit from end-of-use products. Nevertheless, literature within this stream of research advocates that closing the loop helps to mitigate the undesirable footprint of supply chains. In this paper we assess the magnitude of such environmental gains for Electric and Electronic Equipments (EEE), based on a single environmental metric of Cumulative Energy Demand. We detail our analysis for the different phases of the CLSC, i.e. manufacturing, usage, transportation and end-of-life activities. According to our literature review, within the same group of EEE, results greatly vary. Furthermore, based on the environmental hot-spots, we propose extensions of the existing CLSC models to incorporate the CED.

Recent literature on sustainable logistics networks points to two important questions: (i) How to spot the preferred solution(s) balancing environmental and business concerns? (ii) How to improve the understanding of the trade-offs between these two dimensions? We posit that a complete exploration of the efficient frontier and trade-offs between profitability and environmental impacts are particularly suitable to answer these two questions. In order to deal with the exponential number of basic efficient points in the frontier, we propose a formulation that performs in exponential time for the number of objective functions only. We illustrate our findings by designing a complex recycling logistics network in Germany.

The objective in this paper is to shed light into the design of logistic networks balancing profit and the environment. More specifically we intend to i) determine the main factors influencing environmental performance and costs in logistic networks ii) present a comprehensive framework and mathematical formulation, based on multiobjective programming, integrating all relevant variables in order to explore efficient logistic network configurations iii) present the expected computational results of such formulation and iv) introduce a technique to evaluate the efficiency of existing logistic networks.The European Pulp and Paper Industry will be used to illustrate our findings.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is a rather new phenomenon in the Operations Management/Operations Research literature. In the design of Sustainable Supply Chains the increase of transparency across the chain is essential and can be obtained through identification and traceability. Sustainable production often means a change in resource-areas and modes of transportation. Investment in sustainability implies innovations in supply chain management with accompanying costs and profits. We present a framework based on product and process innovations that provides insights in the relevant research questions for integrating Environmental Management and SCM. The framework is applied using the literature and practical case studies in this area.

This article addresses the emergence of networks of practice and the role of knowledge sharing via knowledge portals. Its focus is on factors that stimulate the successful emergence of networks of practice. Literature on knowledge management and communities of practice suggest the preexistence of shared knowledge or a shared believe system as a condition sine qua non for the networks of practice to emerge. We challenge this assumption and argue and demonstrate that common knowledge and believe systems are rather a result of knowledge sharing instead of a pre-condition. The central question is how a knowledge portal facilitates the diffusion of knowledge among rather loosely coupled and often disconnected innovation projects. Research is carried out in the agricultural industry in the Netherlands. In this industry there is a need to change from a product-oriented to a problemoriented innovation structure. The set up of a platform and knowledge portal around agro-logistics – crossing different product-oriented production clusters – was therefore a logical result. It gave the opportunity to analyze what the impact of a knowledge portal is in a situation that people and projects come from different organizations that do not know each other. Do they start to share knowledge and what are the conditions? With regard to the case study of the knowledge portal in the agricultural industry we conclude that a knowledge portal will have an impact on how projects are sharing knowledge and on the emergence of a network of practice. The results show that preconditions for the emergence of a network of practice are sense of urgency and fragmented awareness. These results also indicate the important role of a knowledge broker. The developed knowledge portal seems to lead to overcoming structural holes and a closer cognitive distance among the projects. However, we did not find a direct effect of the knowledge portal on sharing tacit knowledge. In the initial phase of a network of pra