Multichannel Distribution Strategies in Latin America

The process of designing and selecting distribution channels is challenging and it demands an in-depth understanding of the market. Leading firms competing in Latin America are exploring creative ways to effectively reach and efficiently serve each segment of the market. This paper characterizes the key drivers that shape the design and selection of sales and distribution channels. Based on a series of workshops and in-depth analyses from 14 enterprises and 35 distinct distribution schemes we identify key factors and propose a framework that characterize drivers currently used by Latin American companies to design distribution channel strategies

Eco-Growth: A Framework for Sustainable Growth

Growth is imperative for corporate success and yet the environmental impact of this growth is not sustainable. In this paper we offer a framework for thinking about the stages of tackling the environmental sustainability challenge. It ranges from eco-efficiency, which includes initiatives that reduce costs while reducing environmental footprint; eco-alignment, including initiatives requiring cooperation with suppliers and customers; eco-innovation, which includes initiatives based on innovative products and processes; and eco-growth which includes initiatives contributing to the company’s growth, combining all the others. The second part of the paper offers a framework for analyzing the trade-off between shareholders objectives and sustainability objectives. The framework is based on the concept of the efficiency frontier and is used to tie to the four proposed stages of tackling environmental sustainable growth

Carbon Efficient Logistics: A Case study in Modal Shift

Corporate sustainability is becoming increasingly important in the development of business strategies. Consequently, transport and logistics operations come under particular scrutiny due to their substantial impact on the environment. The aim of this paper is to illustrate two successful examples where logistics performance is optimized in tandem with a reduction in carbon emission. The selected case study provides documented examples, detailing how GHG reductions can be achieved while improving business efficiency. The following two initiatives of an US company of the paper and packaging producing sector will be presented: Initiative I: The company works closely with their customers to promote rail transport. Goods are directly sent from production plants which operate their own railway connection to the customer that is also located along the railway. In 2011, the promotion of rail transport on 4 US routes saved 62–72% CO[subscript 2] emission (1,500-2,300 tons of CO[subscript 2]) compared to trucking. These savings are equivalent to taking 300-450 cars off the road every year. Initiative II: The company uses space-efficient pallets in selected railcars and thereby increases the number of shipped goods. Besides optimizing the spatial utilization of the cars, CO[subscript 2] can be saved by transporting more goods on the same railcar. 190 tons of CO[subscript 2] were saved by using space-efficient pallets in 930 railcars in 2011. This equals the CO[subscript 2] emission caused by 21,637 gallons of gasoline consumed by road vehicles. The case study calculations illustrate, step-by-step, how the reductions were estimated, and provide a detailed “road map” for future participants to implement and properly estimate the GHG reductions. Additionally, we also aim to present ‘Carbon Footprinting’ as a useful method of environmental monitoring and reporting and discuss different methodological approaches

Modeling the Cost of International Trade in Global Supply Chains

In a global economy, international trade plays an important role of the economic development. This is especially relevant in emerging markets, where trade could contribute significantly to the economic growth of the country. Many studies have pointed out the relationship between logistics performance and the volume of bilateral trade. Limão and Venables (2001) analyze transport costs, Hummels (2001) analyzes transport time and Hausman et al. (2013) evaluate the impact of specific improvements in logistics performance in terms of time, cost and reliability (variability in time) on increased trade. International Trade ads complexity as goods move across borders where are subject to import and export activities that increase lead times and variability on financial and physical flows (e.g. more documents per trade transaction, more signatures per trade transaction, export clearance, and customs inspection). Also, these global supply chains often involve more actors and agencies that support the trade process such as inspection agencies and custom brokers. Surveys aimed at calculating these costs suggest that they may range from 2% to 15% of the value of traded goods. This paper provides a general framework to model the impact of international trade of a global supply chain. A cost function is proposed for the buyer, the seller and the upstream suppliers that explicitly refers to the additional elements of international trade. The model is applied to compare the impact of different Incoterms rules (see section 3.2.1) in an International Trade taking into account the total cost of the supply chain Blanco, E.E. and Ponce-Cueto, E. – MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics – March 2015 2 for the main actors, including the buyer (importer) and the seller (exporter). The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 includes a succinct literature review of relevant papers in global trade management, and more specifically a review of those papers that focus on the total cost in global supply chains. Section 3 defines the global supply chain under study and presents the key events in a global trade. A total global trade function is formulated in Section 4, one function cost for buyers and another for upstream sellers. In section 5 the supply chain costs under various trade scenarios are presented and a numerical example is developed in order to illustrate the applicability of the model. Discussion and conclusion are included in section 6

Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment of Carbon Footprint of a Tourist Food Menu Using Probabilistic Underspecification Methodology

We proposed a methodology based on life cycle assessment streamlining techniques to estimate the carbon footprint (CF) of a meal. The methodology was applied to estimate the meal CF of twenty-four people on a 4-days Galapagos Island tour using over three hundred existing Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) results in the food industry. In spite of the abundance of food LCA studies, there were very little food CF studies on food produced in South America or Ecuador. By combining established and novel life cycle assessment streamlining techniques, we demonstrated how to (a) calculate the uncertainty associated with the use of surrogate CF data, (b) carry out a preliminary carbon footprint calculation using surrogate data to identify a subset of components that contributes the greatest CFs to the product, which we called the set of interest (SOI) and, (c) greatly reduce the uncertainty in the CF results using only exact CFs for the SOI in addition to the surrogate CFs of the other food items. In general, this methodology can systematically cut down the time and resources that are needed to collect all the emission data in the production of food in a meal, but to focus on only a small handful of food items that impact the total CF, provided that the surrogate CF database is large enough to include the true CF

A Supply Chain View of Product Carbon Footprints: Results from the Banana Supply Chain

Interest in the use of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to measure the carbon footprint of products has increased in recent years. While issues have been raised regarding the use of LCA to measure carbon footprints, the difficulties of doing so in the context of a modern supply chain have received less attention. In this paper we present a case study of the carbon footprint of bananas done in partnership with a leading importer of bananas and a U.S. retail grocery chain. Issues related to data quality and access represent a significant hurdle in measuring the carbon footprint across a supply chain, and we analyze our results in the context of ownership of the supply chain through the use of the GHG Protocol’s concept of emission scopes. Sharing information between supply chain partners has been promoted as one method of resolving data issues, but raises important issues related to supply chain variability. Through an analysis of the impact of transportation we show how the structure of a supply chain introduces significant variability in the carbon footprint required to serve different customers

Designing Sorting Facilities in Reverse Logistics Systems

The main aim of this paper is to propose a multi-waste mix integer lineal programming model for locating sorting facilities in a three-level (local, regional, and central) reverse logistic network. The objective of the model is to decide the location of the storage and sorting facilities across the network. The model was applied in end of life battery recycling network in Spain. As capacity is constrained, the optimal solution moves towards a combination of regional and local facilities for storage and a central facility for sorting

Propuesta de un marco conceptual para el análisis comparativo de las redes de distribución de dos supermercados online = Proposal of a conceptual framework for the comparative analysis of the distribution networks of two online supermarkets

In this article the network configuration for fulfillment and distribution of online orders of two British retailers is analyzed and compared. For this purpose, it is proposed a conceptual framework that consists of the key following aspects: network configuration, transportation management and location of demand. As a result is not obvious to determine the ideal centralization degree in each case. Finally, it is suggested the future development of an analytic tool that helps to choose the most appropriate model

Carbon Footprint of the Galapagos Islands – Quantifying the Environmental Impact of Tourist Activities

The main goal of this paper is to quantify the green house gas emissions (also referred to as carbon footprint) of the Galapagos Islands. The analysis includes emissions from energy generation and of related economic activities of the tourism industry, including international travel to the islands. We have also included the green house gas emission generated by the transportation of fuel, food, supplies and water from Ecuador mainland to Galapagos Islands across multiple modes. We estimated a total carbon footprint of 532,373 tones of CO2-eq, of which 68.82% corresponds to international air travel, 17.86% corresponds to fuel consumption for energy generation and 6.01% due to transportation of food from mainland to the islands. These emissions were allocated between residents and tourists to outline strategies for a sustainable tourism management in the islands

Survey Design to Unravel Freight Transportation Demand of Establishments in Cities

Freight transportation serves the vital role of fulfilling the goods demand of residents in cities, yet little is known about the mechanisms that generate freight movements and their impact on traffic. Even though technology may allow us to better trace real-time movements, establishment surveys are still important to collect data on strategic and tactical freight transportation decisions. Leveraging state-of-art knowledge, a survey was specifically designed to investigate freight travel demand. This paper shows the preparation, execution and data processing of a survey on establishments in Singapore. Analysis of the survey data allows us to explain variations in delivery, such as, the types of supplier, the size and frequency of goods deliveries, and the timing of deliveries