•16 causes of food wastage in the Indian fruits and vegetables supply chain are identified.•The interactions among the causes are modeled using Total Interpretive Structural Modeling (TISM) and Fuzzy ...MICMAC approach.•A large number of intermediaries and lack of scientific harvesting methods are significant causes of the food wastage and can be considered as the root causes.•Poor logistics infrastructure is at the bottom of the hierarchy of the causes of food wastage.•TISM model shows the interpretations among the direct links and significant transitive links, in which 89 links among the 16 causes is tagged by 45 different interpretations.
Wastage in the perishable fresh produce fruits and vegetables supply chain from harvesting stage till it reaches the consumer is very high in emerging markets like India. Studies are inadequate in analysing the causal factors of food losses in this context. This study intends to identify the causes of food wastage, as well as the driving power and dependence of these causes and to analyse the interactions among them. This work proposes to use fuzzy MICMAC and total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) based approach which is a novel effort in this sector, to study the interactions. Based on review of literature and brainstorming among experts in the food industry and academia, this study identified 16 variables as the super-set of causal factors of food wastage which can represent all other causes within them. It is found that the lack of scientific methods in harvesting and a large number of intermediaries in the chain have high driving power and can be considered as the root causes of the food losses. This work categorises the causes into several levels that give an idea regarding the cause which needs more attention than others. Thereby it provides practical insights into how to improve efficiency, competitiveness, and profitability of the food supply chains. For a developing country like India, in addition to the economy, it can have greater implications on food security and conservation of environment resources. This work can be utilized by supply chain designers, managers, and policy makers.
Food supply will need to increase by around 70% from its current levels in order to meet the world population growth of 9.6 billion by 2050. Food waste is the biggest challenge in global food ...security, wherein approximately 20–30% of food waste occurs in the post-harvest stage of the food supply chain (FSC) in developing countries. This food waste generates significant negative environmental effects in addition to the unnecessary usage (and wastage) of resources consumed in producing the wasted food. Whilst India is the major producer and exporter of many agricultural crops, there is a lack of research that evaluates the environmental impact of the Indian FSCs. The environmental impact of the same product varies according to the resources consumed and so it is important that the environmental impact of individual supply chains be considered. Also, there is a lack of studies that uses the result of environmental impact assessment to identify the operational and resource inefficiencies in FSC and develop a framework for sustainable FSC. Thus, this study aims to identify operational and resource inefficiencies present in FSC through environmental impact assessment and propose a framework for redesigning the FSC to improve environmental sustainability. Life cycle assessment approach is used for assessing the environmental impact. This framework has been applied to a mango food supply chain.
•Assessed the environmental impact of the Indian mango food supply chain (FSC).•Identified operational and resource inefficiencies in Indian mango FSC.•Proposed a framework for redesign of FSC for environmental sustainability.•Opportunity for reducing environmental impact is showed using sensitivity analysis.
•An integrated profit function has developed for two-echelon supply chain with two-level trade credits.•Retailer and supplier face uncertain and credit dependent demand, respectively.•Supplier faces ...default risk and decided to charge compound interest to the retailer.•The main objective of this paper is to determine the optimal order quantity of the retailer with an optimal credit period of the supplier, which maximize the profitability of the total supply chain.•Example and solution procedure follows the uniform distribution demand rate and solved.
In the business world, both the supplier and the retailer accept the credit to make their business position strong, because the credit not only strengthens their business relationships but also increases the scale of their profits. The long period of credit may increase the demand rate but simultaneously it can also increase the credit risk. This paper investigates the two-echelon supply chain model consisting of a supplier supplying a product to a single retailer, which sells this product to the end customers, under the two-level trade credit policy. The supplier offers the retailer a credit time, and the retailer also provides credit time to the end customers for settling the account. The credit time offered by the retailer is lesser than the credit time offered by the supplier, but they both are facing the default risk. Supplier decides to charge compound interest on the principal amount of the retailer if s/he fails to pay within credit time. Whereas, the retailer faces the uncertain demand from customers that may increase the chance of facing stock-out by the customers, taken as partially backlogged. The demand rate of the supplier is dependent on the two decision variables: a) the quantity of the retailer’s order; and b) the credit period offered by the supplier. The main objective of this paper is to determine the distribution-free optimal order quantity of the retailer with an optimal credit period of the supplier, which maximize the profitability of the total supply chain. To find the optimal solution mathematical formulation for the supplier and the retailer has been developed in the solution procedure. Adequate numerical example with uniform distribution has been given to justify the solution procedure. Ultimately, sensitivity analysis of the major parameters, managerial implication, with concluding remarks and future research are discussed.
Supply chains (SC) are generally complex and are characterized by numerous activities spread over multiple functions and organizations, which pose interesting challenges for effective SC ...coordination. To meet these challenges, SC members must work towards a unified system and coordinate with each other. A systematic literature review is presented in this paper to throw light on the importance of SC coordination. The objectives of this paper are to: report and review various perspectives on SC coordination issues, understand and appreciate various mechanisms available for coordination and identify the gaps existing in the literature. A framework is suggested indicating scope for further research.
Small farmers in emerging economies face numerous constraints, including financial distress and limited access to profitable markets. Thus, procurement contracts having provisions for resource inputs ...are essential in linking them to the mainstream agri-supply chains. Consequently, we frame a decision-making model for a risk-neutral firm offering advance payment contracts to such credit-constrained smallholders. The firm allows them to commit their supply quantities and pays a fraction of the per-unit guaranteed price for the crop as advance. Behaviorally, the decision-biased farmers are loss-averse and hyperbolic discounters. They have a subjective perception of crop yield based on the (timing of) advance. Our model establishes a criterion for the firm to shortlist the farmers for contracting. Subsequently, it predicts their commitment quantities under limited information on their behavioral parameters using the Prospect Theory framework. Under the model assumptions, we calculate the upper and lower bounds on their commitment quantities, thereby establishing the limits on the firm’s production quantity and profitability. Lastly, our model determines the optimal timing for paying the advances to the eligible farmers using two different strategies. The first favors a firm’s profit maximization objective, while the second maximizes its marginal cost savings from contracting over spot buying. Through analytical and numerical calculations, we establish that the latter approach significantly raises the farmers’ utilities without severely affecting the firm’s profit. Thus, making it fit for a social entrepreneur on a mission to create a socially responsible and economically viable procurement strategy.
•A multi objective MILP model is proposed to optimise the perishable FSC network.•Economic, environmental and social dimensions of sustainability are modelled.•Waste recovery plant for valorising ...food waste is modelled as one of the entities.•Proposed model is applied to the real case of processed mango fruit supply chain.•Robust optimisation approach is used to capture the impact of supply uncertainty.
Increasing pressure from customer expectations to government regulation for sustainable food products warrants research in the sustainable food supply chain (FSC). One-third of the food produced is wasted, despite the potential to valorize food wastes. Additionally, the uncertainty associated with the supply of food products has a significant impact on the FSC decisions, steering the need for robust and sustainable models. Lastly, the issue of food perishability is missing in most optimization models. In line with the gaps identified, this study presents an integrated robust multi-objective optimization model for designing the FSC network considering all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, social and environment), whilst including FSC perishability, food waste valorization and supply uncertainty simultaneously. The proposed model is applied to a real-time case of the Indian mango pulp supply chain and yields several insights for transforming the FSC towards sustainability. This study shows the impact of focusing only on one dimension of sustainability on the other dimensions and the trade-offs among sustainability dimensions which would help the decision-maker select an appropriate non-dominated solution that aligns with the organization's sustainability goals.
•An overview of the farmer producer organisation (FPO) formation is explained.•Product, process and technological innovative practices are identified.•SCOR model is used to analyse the different ...supply chain levels of FPO.•Economic, environmental and social outcome of innovative practices are discussed.•Integrated framework of collaboration, innovation and sustainability is proposed.
Firms today are striving to adopt innovations to ensure their survival, value creation and success. Innovation is increasingly seen as an outcome of a collaborative process, involving various stakeholders both within and outside the firms, in supply chain relationships. Collaborative arrangements are gaining traction and the focus of innovation is shifting from firms to their supply chain networks. This leads to the notion of supply chain innovation, which has been widely accepted as an important ingredient for improving the organisational and supply chain performance of firms. Inefficient practices such as improper crop selection, involvement of too many intermediaries, flood irrigation, over-fertilization and food waste necessitate innovative practices that will improve the sustainability of the food supply chain. In this regard, there is a need to investigate how collaboration among food supply chain entities leads to innovative practices and how these innovative practices in turn improve the sustainability of the food supply chain. This study aims to address this gap using the case of the Indian Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs). Further, using the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model, the supply chain of FPO is divided into five levels - plan, source, make, deliver and return and the case is analysed across these levels. The findings show that the formation of FPO through collaboration facilitates many innovative practices that result in several economic, environmental and social benefits to the FPO.
Collaboration is key to addressing operational efficiencies, and in the context of last mile delivery, operational inefficiencies arising from empty trips, low load factor, and long dwell times ...require collaboration amongst multiple logistics service providers (LSPs). However, existing studies in the last mile delivery adopting collaboration as a means of sharing strategic infrastructure assets, such as distribution centers (DCs), satellites, and driving vehicles, might not be seen as favorable for logistics service providers due to ownership disputes and loss of control over assets. To address this limitation, a new routing method for addressing operational efficiencies in last mile delivery has been proposed in this study, allowing for collaboration across multiple logistics service providers without sharing strategic assets. We have formulated a two-echelon vehicle routing problem with collaboration Points (2E-VRP-CP) where the exchange of goods happens between second-echelon vehicles belonging to different logistics service providers. The method uses a mixed-integer linear programming model (MILP) that minimizes the total distribution cost and has been tested on randomly generated instances. Results suggest that the proposed collaborative approach of exchanging goods between second-echelon vehicles belonging to different logistics service providers can reduce costs by up to 10% relative to the non-collaborative approach and up to 9% compared to the existing collaborative approach that shares strategic assets. A four-phase heuristic algorithm has also been developed to tackle computationally expensive larger instances, which can obtain cost savings of up to 15% compared to a non-collaborative approach. Future work will involve developing a profit-allocation mechanism and will consider additional constraints to make the model more realistic in addressing a real-world problem. Overall, this model can help fleet managers achieve efficient fulfillment in last mile delivery, while the proposed heuristics can enable stakeholders to scale their solutions to real-world scenarios.
•A new problem addressing collaboration among multiple logistics providers is studied.•It addresses efficient collaboration among logistics firms without shared facilities.•Synchronization and time constraints are excluded due to computational complexities.•We designed a MILP for small instances and a four-phase heuristic for larger ones.•Our approach cuts costs by 10% on small instances and 15% on large ones.
In emerging economies, farming contracts with collateral‐free credits are essential in linking the poor producers to the mainstream agri‐supply chains (SCs). Thus, we frame a decision‐making model ...for a firm procuring through advance‐payment contracts (APCs) from numerous small farmers. These farmers are decision‐biased and have varying needs for credit. Hence, composed of a fraction of the per unit guaranteed price, the advance payment uniquely affects the farmers' realized yields. We model the contracting scenario assuming the farmers as reference‐dependent loss‐averse newsvendors facing random yields who are allowed to commit their supply quantities; and the firm as a risk‐neutral profit‐maximizer, encountering demand stochasticity. We then analyze the association of the farmer's optimal commitment and the firm's optimal number of contracted farmers with the contract's parameters. Subsequently, given the information asymmetry on farmers' cost and behavioral attributes, we design a menu of contracts based on the contract theory. The menu simultaneously aims to maximize the firm's expected profit while meeting the welfare needs of the smallholders having the highest requirement for an advance. Finally, we use existing data on the model's parameters value to numerically illustrate its applicability. The illustration could demonstrate the customarily observed practice of excluding smallholders from contractual arrangements featuring no‐APCs. It also exhibited a menu's dominance over a single contract in meeting the SC entities' mutual needs and its usability in promoting socially responsible operations. We believe that firms and policy makers would find these analyses helpful in designing socioeconomically viable agri‐SCs contracts.
Tomatoes are an extensively cultivated and consumed horticulture product in India. Horticulture produce undergoes a series of operations such as harvesting, storage, packaging, loading, unloading, ...and transportation before reaching the end customer in the food supply chain (FSC). Any inefficiencies in these operations cause postharvest losses (PHL) and affect the whole FSC. However, the focus of existing studies has been more on improving productivity than addressing PHL. Several technologies, such as cold storage and evaporative cooling, are available to address PHL, but hardly any technology has been implemented in the Indian FSC. Hence, studies need to identify technology adoption barriers and perform a feasibility analysis of the available technologies. This study addresses this gap by first identifying the cause and effect of PHL in the Indian tomato FSC, exploring different technologies to address the PHL and challenges in implementing those technologies, and finally proposing a feasible option to manage PHL. The case study approach was followed for the collection of relevant data. The findings show several reasons for PHL across the stages of the FSC, including reduced shelf life due to improper storage and long-distance transport. Based on the analysis of the available technologies, temperature-controlled storage facilities and collaboration among FSC partners are suggested as the best possible solutions to address the problem of PHL.
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