INFLUENCE OF WOOD STACKING LOCATION ON FOREST TRANSPORT COSTS

Given the importance of forest transportation planning due to its high contribution in wood final cost, the distance between forest plantation stands and the wood final destination should be optimized in order to reduce process cost. The relation between distance and transportation cost is known, yet, it is still necessary to evaluate how much the location of the wood piles inside the stand interferes with its final cost. Thus, we try to evaluate the influence of the wood stacking location on forest transportation costs. The vectorization of the general map of a property located in Minas Gerais state was performed through the QGIS software, by representing the planting areas by polygons, internal and external access roads by lines, and the possible wood-stacking location to be transported by points. In each stand, four wood-stacking sites were considered, each on one side of the stand. Considering this, optimal route simulations were performed based on the criterion of the shortest distance between each pile of wood and a carbonization plant. The results showed a 32% reduction in the final cost of transportation when the wood is stacked in places closer to the carbonization plant. Therefore, the results evidence that the choice of the ideal stacking point, in the aspect of closer proximity to the destination of the wood transportation, can generate savings in this process

A Framework for Collaboration among Regional Food System Participants

Horizontal collaboration can benefit supply chain partners by increasing their collective competitiveness. However, each participant in the collaboration typically maintains its own individual business objectives. Therefore, such collaborations require a standard operational framework that specifies the allocation of participant responsibilities and benefits. While horizontal collaboration in regional food supply chains is common, very few participants have adopted this type of standard framework. As a result, the sharing of resources and information among partners tends to be inefficient and potentially contentious. This paper describes our efforts to formalize a supply chain collaboration that has developed among several regional food hubs and small-scale food producers in Iowa. The focus of the project has been the design and implementation of a flexible and affordable inventory tracking system that will allow the participants to accurately share logistics information with one another in real time. While the project has faced significant financial constraints, the shared social mission and trust that exists among the participants has facilitated a successful pilot study. The overall goal of the project is to support the sustainable growth and long-term resilience of Iowa’s regional food system while ensuring that each participant is able to maintain sufficient autonomy

Mutualisation du transport durable de marchandises

International audienceLa collaboration logistique aujourd'hui s'opère essentiellement au niveau vertical qui concerne les membres d'une même chaîne de valeur. Cependant, les résultats mitigés sur le transport de marchandises montrent qu'il est difficile de dépasser la performance actuelle par la collaboration traditionnellement verticale. Une autre collaboration est potentiellement nécessaire, c'est la collaboration horizontale « la mutualisation ». Elle consiste à partager les moyens et les ressources (véhicules et entrepôts) pour améliorer les différents aspects du développement durable. Le concept de la mutualisation logistique est peu développé dans la littérature, les travaux de recherche traitent seulement les deux aspects économique et/ou environnemental. Notre objectif est de traité le problème de conception d'une chaîne logistique mutualisée. Cette étude est un résumé communiqué dans la conférence ROADEF 2018 . L'objectif de ce travail est de donner un aperçu sur l'objectif de la thèse

Inter-firm collaboration in transportation

Dans la littérature académique et professionnelle relative au transport de marchandise, il y a longtemps que les méthodes de planification avancées ont été identifiées comme un moyen de dégager des économies grâce à une efficacité accrue des opérations de transport. Plus récemment, la collaboration interentreprises dans la planification du transport a été étudiée comme une source de gain supplémentaire en efficacité et, par conséquent, une opportunité pour dégager de nouvelles économies pour les collaborateurs. Cependant, la mise en œuvre d'une collaboration interentreprises en transports soulève un certain nombre d’enjeux. Cette thèse aborde trois thèmes centraux de la collaboration interentreprises et démontre les contributions via des études de cas dans l’industrie forestière et du meuble. Premièrement, les moyens technologiques pour soutenir une collaboration en planification du transport sont étudiés. Un système d’aide à la décision supportant la collaboration en transport forestier est présenté. Deuxièmement, le partage entre les collaborateurs du coût commun en transport est étudié. Une méthode de répartition du coût de transport tenant compte de l'impact - l’augmentation du coût de transport - des exigences inégales entre des collaborateurs est proposée. Troisièmement, la création de groupes collaboratifs - des coalitions - dans un ensemble de collaborateurs potentiel est étudiée. Un modèle réseau pour la formation d’une coalition selon les intérêts d’un sous-ensemble de collaborateurs adoptant ou pas un comportement opportuniste est détaillé. De plus, pour soutenir l'étude des thèmes précédents, la thèse comprend deux revues de la littérature. Premièrement, une revue sur les méthodes de planification et les systèmes d’aide à la décision en transport forestier est présenté. Deuxièmement, à travers la proposition d'un cadre pour créer et gérer une collaboration en transport et, plus généralement en logistique, une revue de travaux sur le transport et la logistique collaborative est offerte.In the academic and professional literature on freight transportation, computer-based planning methods have a long time ago been identified as a means to achieve cost reduction through enhanced transportation operations efficiency. More recently, inter-firm collaboration in transportation planning has been investigated as a means to provide further gains in efficiency and, in turn, to achieve additional cost reduction for the collaborators. However, implementation of inter-firm collaboration in transportation raises a number of issues. This thesis addresses three central themes in inter-firm collaboration and exemplifies the contributions in case studies involving collaboration in furniture and forest transportation. First, technological means to enable collaboration in transportation planning are studied. Embedding a computer-based planning method for truck routing, a decision support system enabling collaborative transportation is presented. Second, sharing the common transportation cost among collaborators is studied. A cost allocation method taking into account the impact – an increase of the transportation cost – of uneven requirements among collaborators is proposed. Third, building collaborating groups (i.e. coalitions) among a set of potential collaborators is studied. A network model for coalition formation by a subset of self-interested collaborators adopting or not an opportunistic behaviour is detailed. Moreover, to support the study of the aforementioned themes, the thesis includes two literature reviews. First, a survey on planning methods and decision support systems for vehicle routing problem in forest transportation is presented. Second, through the proposition of a framework for building and managing collaboration in transportation and, more generally in logistics, a survey of works on collaborative transportation and logistics is given

Determination of Optimal Distribution and Transportation Network (Wood Transportation in Iran)

Today, transportation network optimization has become one of the significant aspects of supply chain planning, and even a slight rise in productivity can significantly reduce costs of distribution of wood in the transportation network. In the forest based industry, given that transportation is the main cost of raw wood supply, using transportation planning, distribution should be done in a way so as to minimize the overall wood displacement. Such planning must meet the needs of all demand centers and the distribution supplier points must be used to their full capacity. Accordingly, the present study strived to find an optimal solution for transportation and distribution of raw wood from the main supplier points to small and large centers of wood and paper industries in Iran. This optimization simultaneously focuses on several products and is at the macroeconomic level of the country wood market. To achieve this goal, linear programming – Transportation Simplex Algorithm was used. The results show a significant fall in transportation costs and a more organized wood distribution network than the current situation. This cost reduction can be attributed to decisions about the optimal distribution of wood types, determining transport routes, and opting for the right type of truck supplier based on load tonnage and distance. This plummet in transportation costs plunges the cost of wood and wood products, which will surge competition in the business and will be of interest to manufacturers, distributors, customers and stakeholders in general

Closer Starfish: A research project investigating freight distribution cooperation opportunities in Sweden

Horizontal cooperation, when companies on the same level in the supply chain cooperate, is a concept that has received increased focus during the last decade and has been examined in both the Benelux and the UK. In Sweden, the horizontal cooperation has only been examined on a smaller scale in remote areas. We have carried out a quantitative case study, examining horizontal cooperation at the network level. Seven companies--two retailers (Coop and ICA) and five suppliers (Findus, Arvid Nordquist, Löfbergs Lila, Cloetta, and KåKå) participated in the study and have contributed transportation and cost data. The analysis has tested various coalitions of the participating companies and the study shows, in line with previous research, that companies have the ability to reduce their transport costs. Cooperation between a large actor and one or more smaller companies shows a potential cost savings between 1 and 10%. Cooperations between the smaller actors indicate potential cost savings of more than 20%. However, there are uncertainties in the data concerning the smaller companies and therefore, further analysis is needed in order to investigate how these potentials are to be realized. Closer Starfish shows that there is a large potential to reduce costs if companies combine horizontal and vertical cooperation. The companies have a great possibility to make their transports more efficient by cooperating outside of their own supply chain. In order to maximize the likelihood of this possibility it is important to further study in more depth coalitions with both horizontal and vertical cooperation in order to investigate how to realize the identified potential in practice

Service level, cost and environmental optimization of collaborative transportation

Less than truckload is an important type of road-based transportation. Based on real data and on a collaboration with industry, we show that a collaborative approach between companies offers important benefits. We propose to develop partnerships between shipping companies and to synchronize their shipments. Four operational collaborative schemes with different objectives are developed. The first one focuses on minimizing shipping costs for shippers. The second and third ones minimize the carrier’s costs and the environmental cost, respectively. The fourth one is a combination of all three. The results of our computational experiments demonstrate that collaboration lead to significant cost reductions