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Sustainable Logistics: Supply Chain Management Design

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (23 July 2023) | Viewed by 4198

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Institute of Logistics, University of Miskolc, 3515 Miskolc-Egyetemváros, Hungary
Interests: transportation; supply chain; city logistics; optimization; logistics; Industry 4.0; intelligent transportation systems
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Guest Editor
Institute of Logistics, University of Miskolc, 3515 Miskolc, Hungary
Interests: supply chain design; heuristic optimisation; material handling design

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The design and operation of sustainable supply chains is becoming a topic of increasing importance for small- and medium-sized enterprises and multinational companies. The fourth industrial revolution resulted in significant changes to supply chain solutions: conventional manufacturing and service systems were transformed into cyber-physical systems, and the application of IoT solutions could be used to improve the efficiency of design and operations.

Based on the importance of sustainability from the financial, technical and environmental aspects of the supply chain, it is irrefutable that this research topic is relevant. The increasing importance of cost, resource and energy efficiency in supply chain solutions and the intention to find design and operation strategies were a motivation for launching this Special Issue.

We invite researchers in the global logistics community to contribute original research papers, as well as review articles and empirical studies, which will stimulate debates on this topic.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Intelligent technologies to enhance supply chain sustainability;
  • The simulation of the large-scale supply chain;
  • Decision making in the supply chain;
  • Information management in the supply chain;
  • Business models in the sustainable supply chain;
  • Optimization in supply chain design;
  • Interconnected intelligent logistics for sustainability.

Dr. Tamás Bányai
Dr. Péter Veres
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • energy efficiency
  • economical footprint
  • optimisation
  • simulation
  • sustainability

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 1439 KiB  
Article
Robust Optimization Model for Sustainable Supply Chain Design Integrating LCA
by Pablo Flores-Siguenza, Jose Antonio Marmolejo-Saucedo and Joaquina Niembro-Garcia
Sustainability 2023, 15(19), 14039; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151914039 - 22 Sep 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1138
Abstract
Supply chain management is the basis for the operations in an organization. The development of realistic supply chain designs that work effectively in the presence of disturbances in a stochastic environment and incorporate sustainability factors, is a complex challenge being investigated in recent [...] Read more.
Supply chain management is the basis for the operations in an organization. The development of realistic supply chain designs that work effectively in the presence of disturbances in a stochastic environment and incorporate sustainability factors, is a complex challenge being investigated in recent years. However, the inclusion of a methodological structured framework to evaluate environmental impacts constitutes a knowledge gap in the literature on supply chain design. This study developed a model for sustainable supply chain design, integrating Life Cycle Assessment and based on a robust optimization approach. The study follows a 4-stage methodology beginning with data collection and the execution of a Life Cycle Assessment. Then, the deterministic modeling is proposed, concluding with a robust model. A bi-objective model is proposed to maximize utility and minimize environmental impact based on demand scenarios. The model was validated with real data from a medium-sized enterprise that produces antibacterial gel, generating as a result, different configuration alternatives for the supply chain to transport the products and raw materials between its elements. The conclusions of this work highlight the importance of including sustainability factors during supply chain design, the consequences and costs of its inclusion, as well as the priority actions that promote sustainable designs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Logistics: Supply Chain Management Design)
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11 pages, 1017 KiB  
Article
Analysis of Sub-Optimization Impact on Partner Selection in VMI
by Jin Sha and Sisi Zheng
Sustainability 2023, 15(3), 2742; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15032742 - 02 Feb 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1217
Abstract
Different combinations of elements will lead to different system functions, so a supply chain composed of enterprises with different characteristics will lead to differences in the system performance. In this study, a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) model is built; the model takes into consideration [...] Read more.
Different combinations of elements will lead to different system functions, so a supply chain composed of enterprises with different characteristics will lead to differences in the system performance. In this study, a vendor-managed inventory (VMI) model is built; the model takes into consideration the factors of demand amplification, order and inventory cost change. Then, the change in the revenue of the supply chain and its members—due to VMI—are represented, and the influence of the different production parameters on this change is analyzed. On the basis of proving the distinctive feature of the Kaldor–Hicks improvement possessed by VMI, the profit fluctuations of enterprises in a supply chain that is composed of members with different characteristics using VMI are calculated by a numerical experiment. The conclusions of this paper indicate why enterprises prefer to choose VMI partners, and the results confirm the sub-optimal characteristic of this tendency. In addition, the results also reveal the inherent contradiction of VMI between supply chain efficiency improvement and coordination among the supply chain’s members. If an enterprise chooses VMI partners solely to maximize its own interests, the possibility of Pareto improvement in the supply chain will be maximized. However, at this time, a more effective supply chain system cannot be organized. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Logistics: Supply Chain Management Design)
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21 pages, 2488 KiB  
Article
Supply Chain Design for Blending Technologies
by Tamás Bányai and Péter Veres
Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8760; https://doi.org/10.3390/su14148760 - 18 Jul 2022
Viewed by 1174
Abstract
When optimizing blending technologies, the main objective is to determine the right mixing ratio of the raw materials, depending on the different qualities and costs of the raw materials available. It can be concluded that research is mainly focused on answering technological questions, [...] Read more.
When optimizing blending technologies, the main objective is to determine the right mixing ratio of the raw materials, depending on the different qualities and costs of the raw materials available. It can be concluded that research is mainly focused on answering technological questions, and only very few studies take into account the logistics processes related to blending technologies, their design, cost-efficiency, utilization and sustainability including energy efficiency and environmental impact. Based on this fact, within the frame of this research the authors describe a new approach, extending the basic model of blending problems by adding new supply chain efficiency-related components that makes it possible to take logistics parameters related to the raw materials supply (available stocks, batch sizes, transport and storage costs, supply chain structure) into consideration. A mathematical model of this supply chain optimization problem for blending technologies is described including routing and assignment problems in the supply chain, while technological objectives are also taken into consideration as technological objective functions and constraints. The optimization problem described in the model is a problem with non-deterministic polynomial-time hardness (NP-hard), which means that there are no known efficient analytical methods to solve the logistics-related supply chain optimization of blending technologies. As a solution algorithm, the authors have used an evolutive solver and a new metrics, which improved the efficiency of the comparison of distances between solutions of routing problems represented by permutation arrays. The scenario analysis, which focuses on the integrated optimization of technological and logistics problems validates the model and evaluates the solution algorithm and the new metrics. Using the mentioned algorithm, the supply chain processes of the blending technologies can be improved from availability, efficiency, sustainability point of view. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Logistics: Supply Chain Management Design)
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