Supply chain finance for ameliorating and deteriorating products: a systematic literature review

Ameliorating and deteriorating products, or, more generally, items that change value over time, present a high sensitiveness to the surrounding environment (e.g., temperature, humidity, and light intensity). For this reason, they should be properly stored along the supply chain to guarantee the desired quality to the consumers. Specifically, ameliorating items face an increase in value if there are stored for longer periods, which can lead to higher selling price. At the same time, the costumers’ demand is sensitive to the price (i.e., the higher the selling price the lower the final demand), sensitiveness that is related to the quality of the products (i.e., lower sensitiveness for high-quality products). On the contrary, deteriorating items lose quality and value over time which result in revenue losses due to lost sales or reduced selling price. Since these products need to be properly stored (i.e., usually in temperature- and humidity-controlled warehouses) the holding costs, which comprise also the energy costs, may be particularly relevant impacting on the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the supply chain. Furthermore, due to the recent economic crisis, companies (especially, small and medium enterprises) face payment difficulties of customers and high volatility of resources prices. This increases the risk of insolvency and on the other hand the financing needs. In this context, supply chain finance emerged as a mean for efficiency by coordinating the financial flow and providing a set of financial schemes aiming at optimizing accounts payable and receivable along the supply chain. The aim of the present study is thus to investigate through a systematic literature review the two main themes presented (i.e., inventory management models for products that change value over time, and financial techniques and strategies to support companies in inventory management) to understand if any financial technique has been studied for supporting the management of this class of products and to verify the existing literature gap

Energy efficiency measures for refrigeration systems in the cold chain

The refrigeration industry plays a major role in the global economy and has significant contributions in the energy and environmental domains which stakeholders need to better take into account. In particular, the electricity consumption for refrigeration and air conditioning increased over the last few years, reaching about 17% of the electricity worldwide used, and it is expected to further grow. In cold chains, an accurate refrigeration is required to ensure an optimal preservation of perishable goods and, in the food sector, it can be responsible for up to 85% of the total energy consumption, depending on the specific foodstuff considered. Refrigeration has relevant adverse effects on the environment. It is responsible of direct emissions due to leakage of fluorocarbons, and indirect emissions produced by fossil fuel power plants. Energy efficiency improvements of refrigeration systems represent a noteworthy solution for reducing the environmental impacts and can be obtained by investing in new and more efficient technologies, or by implementing simple and less expensive maintenance and operational practices. In addition to energy savings, and the consequent reduction of energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions, these measures have the potential to introduce multiple benefits, such as reduced operation and maintenance costs, and improved reliability and productivity. This work aims to investigate possible eco-efficient solutions related to the refrigeration systems and to briefly evaluate the related barriers and benefits. In particular, the study will be based on a holistic perspective on the life cycle of the perishable products which considers the whole cold chains including transport and storage activities

Facility layout problem with auxiliary systems for energy efficiency

In the Facility Layout Design (FLD), little research considers the energy costs even though increasing attention is placed on the energy consumption related to auxiliary systems (i.e. electrical supply, process heat, refrigeration and compressed air). The approaches to solving the Facility Layout Problem (FLP) traditionally consider the costs related to the material flows, while the auxiliary systems are designed after the definition of the facility’s placement. However, the arrangement of departments/machines influences the investment cost, associated with the installation of the auxiliary systems and their operating costs which, in several cases, represent a relevant part of the overall costs. Considering an energy-efficient solution, the FLD should be based not only on the material flows but also on the auxiliary systems. The objective of this study is to present a novel approach to FLP that jointly allows the optimization of the machines arrangement by considering both investment and operating costs related to the electrical service jointly to material flows. A solution algorithm to address the positioning of the electrical panel board and the selection of electrical cable sections are presented. The results obtained show an overall total cost minimisation with consistent savings compared to the traditional FLP approach

Queuing Theory-Based Design Methods for the Definition of Power Requirements in Manufacturing Systems

The attention paid to energy consumption is growing steadily due to the costs associated with energy usage as well as the resulting environmental impacts. This work proposes an analytical method to assess the energy consumption and the power requirements of a productive system. By exploiting queuing theory, it is possible to achieve a probabilistic view of energy consumption. This method is useful to define the contractual power level and calculate the service level associated with it, so it is applicable as a decision-support tool during the design of productive systems when it is not possible to obtain field data (green-field design). Three different models characterised by an increasing degree of complexity were exploited. The three models share the feature of an infinite number of servers, while the increasing complexity is due to the introduction of batch arrivals and the variability of the size of the arrival lot. A connection is made between production variables and power used by machines to consider energy consumption. A numerical example shows the applicability of the method and highlights the different results obtained through the three models. In addition, analytical formulations are available for all three proposed models; thus, no simulation process is needed

Energy scheduling problem with no-wait/blocking constraints

In the energy-intensive sector, energy consumption has gained great attention, because of the increasing of energy costs and environmental implications. The optimization of production scheduling in these firms becomes a strategic key in the energy costs reduction. This study focuses on the scheduling optimization of an inflexible system consisting of a two-machine flow-shop without any buffer in between. An algorithm for addressing the no-wait/blocking constrained problem is introduced with the aim of minimizing the total energy cost of the system. The proposed algorithm is applied to a real industrial case and the main results are shown