Overview and classification of coordination contracts within forward and reverse supply chains

Among coordination mechanisms, contracts are valuable tools used in both theory and practice to coordinate various supply chains. The focus of this paper is to present an overview of contracts and a classification of coordination contracts and contracting literature in the form of classification schemes. The two criteria used for contract classification, as resulted from contracting literature, are transfer payment contractual incentives and inventory risk sharing. The overview classification of the existing literature has as criteria the level of detail used in designing the coordination models with applicability on the forward and reverse supply chains.Coordination contracts; forward supply chain; reverse supply chain

Myopic Versus Farsighted Behaviors in a Low-Carbon Supply Chain with Reference Emission Effects

The increased carbon emissions cause relatively climate deterioration and attract more attention of governments, consumers, and enterprises to the low-carbon manufacturing. This paper considers a dynamic supply chain, which is composed of a manufacturer and a retailer, in the presence of the cap-and-trade regulation and the consumers’ reference emission effects. To investigate the manufacturer’s behavior choice and its impacts on the emission reduction and pricing strategies together with the profits of both the channel members, we develop a Stackelberg differential game model in which the manufacturer acts in both myopic and farsighted manners. By comparing the equilibrium strategies, it can be found that the farsighted manufacturer always prefers to keep a lower level of emission reduction. When the emission permit price is relatively high, the wholesale/retail price is lower if the manufacturer is myopic and hence benefits consumers. In addition, there exists a dilemma that the manufacturer is willing to act in a farsighted manner but the retailer looks forward to a partnership with the myopic manufacturer. For a relatively high price of emission permit, adopting myopic strategies results in a better performance of the whole supply chain

Environmental Implications of the Foodservice and Food Retail Industries

The growing size and importance of service sector industries in the U.S. economy raises questions about the suitability of the current environmental management system to deal with perhaps a changing set of environmental concerns. This paper analyzes the environmental impacts associated with the activities undertaken and influenced by two service sector industries—foodservice (e.g., restaurants) and food retail (e.g., grocery stores). This paper is not a definitive analysis of the magnitude of the environmental effects of these industries, but is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the types of environmental implications—positive and negative—of these two service sectors. The foodservice and food retail industries are components of a larger industrial system, the food marketing system, that extends from the production of food to the marketing of food products to consumers. The U.S. foodservice industry comprises an estimated 831,000 individual establishments, employs an estimated 11 million people (about 8.6% of the U.S. workforce), and is expected to have total sales of $376 billion in 2000. The U.S. food retail industry encompasses approximately 126,000 grocery stores, employs approximately 3.5 million people (about 2.7$449 billion in 1998. For this analysis, we use a simple conceptual framework that segregates the environmental impacts of these industries into three categories: direct, upstream, and downstream. We conclude that, while the direct environmental impacts (e.g., energy use, solid waste generation; air and water emissions; food safety concerns; refrigerants) of these industries are important to recognize and address, opportunities also exist for these industries to address their upstream and downstream environmental impacts.

Supply chain management: An opportunity for metaheuristics

In today’s highly competitive and global marketplace the pressure on organizations to find new ways to create and deliver value to customers grows ever stronger. In the last two decades, logistics and supply chain has moved to the center stage. There has been a growing recognition that it is through an effective management of the logistics function and the supply chain that the goal of cost reduction and service enhancement can be achieved. The key to success in Supply Chain Management (SCM) require heavy emphasis on integration of activities, cooperation, coordination and information sharing throughout the entire supply chain, from suppliers to customers. To be able to respond to the challenge of integration there is the need of sophisticated decision support systems based on powerful mathematical models and solution techniques, together with the advances in information and communication technologies. The industry and the academia have become increasingly interested in SCM to be able to respond to the problems and issues posed by the changes in the logistics and supply chain. We present a brief discussion on the important issues in SCM. We then argue that metaheuristics can play an important role in solving complex supply chain related problems derived by the importance of designing and managing the entire supply chain as a single entity. We will focus specially on the Iterated Local Search, Tabu Search and Scatter Search as the ones, but not limited to, with great potential to be used on solving the SCM related problems. We will present briefly some successful applications.Supply chain management, metaheuristics, iterated local search, tabu search and scatter search

Food safety requirements in African green bean exports and their impact on small farmers:

"Many African countries have moved into the production of non-traditional agricultural products, in an effort to diversify their exports and increase foreign currency earnings. However, in order to access developed country markets and urban domestic markets, these products must meet food safety requirements, including protocols relating to pesticide residues, field and pack house operations, and traceability. Faced with stringent food safety requirements, companies that establish production centers in low-income countries might exclude poor farmers, thus negatively impacting the poor. We herein study this issue in the case of the green bean export sectors in three African countries: Ethiopia, Kenya and Zambia. In the short-term, stringent food safety standards have screened out smallholders in all these countries, excluding them from the green bean export chain. However, some institutional arrangements have helped support the smallholders who continue to function in the export-oriented green bean supply chains. In particular, public-private partnerships have played a key role in creating farm-to-fork linkages that can satisfy market demands for food safety while retaining smallholders in the supply chain. Furthermore, organized producer groups capable of monitoring their own food safety requirements through collective action have become attractive to buyers who are looking for ways to ensure traceability and reduce transaction costs." from Authors' AbstractInternational food safety standards, Small farmers, Supply chains, Agricultural trade, Public-private partnerships,

U.S. Fresh Produce Wholesale Sector Trade Practices: Initial Survey Results

The wholesale sector is an intermediate stage in the supply chain of fresh produce. In general, business operations in this sector do not transform a specific product, but rather provide services related to the sale of the product. The term 'wholesaler' refers to all merchants that are part of this intermediate stage in the supply chain; namely, wholesale merchants, distributors, jobbers, shippers, import/export merchants, agents, brokers, commission merchants, and other types of intermediaries (US Census 2004). This definition of wholesalers, however, does not accurately depict all the activities and relationships participants in this supply chain sector develop. Hence, in order to be consistent with a correct terminology and to understand the results presented in this report, the use of 'intermediaries' throughout this paper refers to all participants including grower-shipper/distributors, brokers, custom service providers and wholesalers.Agribusiness,

Examining sustainability performance in the supply chain: The case of the Greek dairy sector

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Industrial Marketing Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.This paper evaluates the sustainability performance of the Greek dairy chain and the performance of its individual members by using key indicators in relation to efficiency, flexibility, responsiveness and product quality. We assessed the importance of these indicators based on the relevant perceptions of key members of this chain. A structured questionnaire was developed where nineteen sustainability-related issues were examined. Two hundred and fifty three members of the Greek dairy supply chain responded including breeders, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and catering companies. Our findings illustrate the immediate need for improvement in many key sustainability performance indicators. They also show the critical role of large dairy manufacturers who are the “sustainability performance champions” in this chain and are the driving force for the implementation of many sustainability initiatives.European Unio