Understanding the Diffusion of a Mobile Application for Supply Chain Management: A System Dynamics Approach

An appropriate information and logistics structure is of paramount importance for the local fresh food supply chain, which is characterized by market fragmentation and little coordination among suppliers and customers. Mobile communication technologies can help meet this goal because of their large diffusion and real time information management. In this context, a System Dynamics model is developed to study the diffusion pattern and the impacts of a new application for mobile devices supporting supply chain operations. To this end, a reference supply chain in Northern Italy has been considered. The base application and the integration of three additional features assisting in the management of product traceability, electronic payments, and time-sensitive deliveries are analyzed. Simulation results provide insights into the dynamics of adoption of the mobile service and help derive business policies to disseminate its diffusion

Assessing City Logistics projects: a business-oriented approach

The rising urbanization and the consequent increasing pressure on efficient urban freight distribution activities have laid the ground for a set of City Logistics (CL) initiatives addressing the negative externalities generated by goods transportation, such as pollution, traffic congestion, and inefficient use of infrastructures. Although several CL pilot projects have been developed, and some initiatives have succeeded in generating benefits for the stakeholders involved, both public and private stakeholders are often still unsure when it comes to launching new initiatives because they are unable to foresee the long-term economic and financial sustainability of such projects. However, these issues are seldom addressed. In fact, only recently researchers and practitioners have started to elaborate methodologies aimed at assessing the economic viability of CL initiatives. The present work contributes to this research stream by developing a business model framework for the assessment of CL projects. To this end, an existing business model framework has been adapted to the context at issue by modifying its components via a desk research based on existing literature and a number of international projects. The developed framework constitutes a tool to comprehensively capture all the elements of a CL business model. Therefore, it can be applied to analyse success and failure factors of existing projects, in order to provide recommendations about the feasibility and longterm sustainability of future CL initiatives

Analysing the Diffusion of a Mobile Service Supporting the E-grocery Supply Chain

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a systemic methodology to assess the potential of and facilitate policies for the diffusion of a smartphone based service enabling supply chain (SC) operations in the e-grocery sector. Design/methodology/approach – A System Dynamics (SD) model combining the Bass paradigm for innovation diffusion and an inventory management framework is developed. Semi-structured interviews are conducted to understand the industry business processes; a simple SD model is designed to capture the most important variables together with the relationships among them; a detailed SD model is calibrated and simulation outcomes are analysed. Findings – The efficiency and reliability of the service drive its diffusion among producers and consumers, who in turn persuade retailers to adopt. The assessment methodology can be part of feasibility studies and marketing investigations in order to understand the impact of e-commerce tools on SC processes. Research limitations/implications – This contribution stresses the need to analyse how mobile information technologies may benefit all the business processes of the e-grocery SC, and not just one single process or stakeholder. Practical implications – The approach offers a roadmap to identify the factors influencing the diffusion of mobile e-grocery services as well as the associated impacts on SC processes. Originality/value – The work contributes to overcoming the lack of approaches studying the diffusion of e-grocery by taking into account all the relevant aspects and stakeholders involved and not only the consumer perspective

SIMULTANEOUS ROUTING AND LOADING METHOD FOR MILK-RUN USING HYBRID GENETIC SEARCH ALGORITHM

Milk-run methodology is proposed to manage the procurement of orders from suppliers. The heuristic solution methods in the literature generally apply stepwise approach to route and load the vehicles. In this study we propose a hybrid genetic local search algorithm which simultaneous solves vehicle routing and order loading problems. This is the main contribution of the study. We consider volume and weight capacities (multi capacitated) of different types of transportation vehicles (heterogeneous fleet). Because of high adaptability and easy utilization, genetic algorithms are the most preferred approach of meta-heuristics. The chromosome structure of the proposed genetic algorithm is constituted by random numbers to eliminate infeasibility. The best chromosome of each generation is improved using local search method during the algorithm runs. We applied the algorithm to a real manufacturing company that produces welding robots and other process automation equipment. The results showed the effectiveness of the algorithm