Logistic

Der Trend zu Ausdehnung der Agrarlogistik in Deutschland hat sich verstätigt. Durch das Abflauen des Biogasbooms sind zwar nicht mehr solche Sprünge zu erwarten, aber viele Entwicklungen, die dadurch angestoßen wurden, verbreiten sich nun auch in anderen Sektoren. Die Diskussion bezüglich Traktor oder LKW als optimales landwirtschaftliches Transportfahrzeug und die Entwicklung neuer Transportketten geht weiter. Die Transportkapazitäten werden z.B. durch Leichtbau optimiert und Transportketten restrukturiert. Im Bereich der Informationstechnologie sind nun auch leistungsfähige Simulations- und Regelungstools für die Agrarlogistik auf dem Markt. Die Automatisierung von Logistikprozessen wie z.B. die gemeinsame Steuerung von Überladewagen und Mähdrescher ist ebenfalls zu beobachten.In the last years the amount of transported goods and the transport distances in the agricultural sector are also rising. The biogas boom stopped but many developments have been initiated in other sectors. The discussion about tractor or truck as optimal agricultural transport units and the development of new logistic chains continues. The transport capacities are optimized by lightweight construction. In the market are now powerful simulation and control tools for agricultural logistics. The automation of logistics processes can also be observed

Model for energy analysis of Miscanthus production and transportation

A computational tool is developed for the estimation of the energy requirements of Miscanthus x giganteus on individual fields that includes a detailed analysis and account of the involved in-field and transport operations. The tool takes into account all the individual involved in-field and transport operations and provides a detailed analysis on the energy requirements of the components that contribute to the energy input. A basic scenario was implemented to demonstrate the capabilities of the tool. Specifically, the variability of the energy requirements as a function of field area and field-storage distance changes was shown. The field-storage distance highly affects the energy requirements resulting in a variation in the efficiency if energy (output/input ratio) from 15.8 up to 23.7 for the targeted cases. Not only the field-distance highly affects the energy requirements but also the biomass transportation system. Based on the presented example, different transportation systems adhering to the same configuration of the production system creates variation in the efficiency of energy (EoE) between 12.9 and 17.5. The presented tool provides individualized results that can be used for the processes of designing or evaluating a specific production system since the outcomes are not based on average norms

Green Supply Chain Management

Today, one of the top priorities of an organization’s modern corporate strategy is to portray itself as socially responsible and environmentally sustainable. As a focal point of sustainability initiatives, green supply chain management has emerged as a key strategy that can provide competitive advantages with significant parallel gains for company profitability. In designing a green supply chain, the intent is the adoption of comprehensive and cross-business sustainability principles, from the product conception stage to the end-of-life stage. In this context, green initiatives relate to tangible and intangible corporate benefits. Sustainability reports from numerous companies reveal that greening their supply chains has helped reduce operating cost, thus boosting effectiveness and efficiency while increasing sustainability of the business. Green Supply Chain Management provides a strategic overview of sustainable supply chain management, shedding light on the theoretical background and key principles of the topic. Specifically, this book covers various thematic areas including benefits and impact of green supply chain management; enablers and barriers on supply chain operations; inbound and outbound logistics considerations; and production, packaging and reverse logistics under the notion of "greening". The ultimate aim of this textbook is to highlight the challenges in the implementation of green supply chain management in modern companies and to provide a roadmap for decision-making in real-life cases. Combining chapter summaries and discussion questions, this book provides an accessible and student-friendly introduction to green supply change management and will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of sustainable business and supply chain management

Functional modeling for green biomass supply chains

The biomass supply chain is a multiple-segment chain characterized by prominent complexity and uncertainty, and as such, it requires increased managerial efforts as compared to the case of a single operation management. This paper deals with the supply chain management of green (e.g. grass) biomass. Specifically, three different supply chain systems, in terms of machinery configurations, were analyzed and evaluated in terms of task times and cost performance. By using a functional modeling methodology, the structural representations of the systems, in terms of activities, actions, processes, and operations, were generated and implemented by the ExtendSim® simulation software. It was shown that the models can identify the bottlenecks of the systems and can be further used as a decision support system by testing various alternatives, in terms of the resources used and their dimensioning. Finally, the models were evaluated against the sensitivity on input parameters which are known with a level of uncertainty, i.e. the expected yield and the expected machinery performance