Cooperatives for fruits and vegetables in emerging countries: Rationalization and impact of decentralization

We develop a (noncooperative) game theoretic model for a decentralized setting wherein fringe farmers compete with a two-tier cooperative network involving network farmers and a coordinator. We examine the roles of the coordinator and profit sharing in allocating costs/benefits of externalities in enhancing network efficiency and stability. Our main finding is that using profit sharing based mechanism the coordinator can overcome inherent inefficiency and instability of decentralization and noncooperative behavior of the network farmers. The roles of the coordinator and profit sharing are particularly important when it is economical for both network and fringe farmers to supply the product.     

Design and planning for green global supply chains under periodic review replenishment policies

We quantify the impact of jointly optimizing strategic network design and tactical inventory planning on the cost and CO₂ emissions of multi-echelon logistics networks. The obtained insights indicate that longer optimized replenishment cycles reduce a node’s transportation cost and CO₂ emissions but increase its inventory costs. Moreover, under a fixed replenishment cycle, a node’s service level increases when supplied by a satellite warehouse. Finally: (i) the costs of implementing optimal green network design decisions could be misleading if inventory planning is neglected, (ii) greening of supply chains could become expensive, (iii) current legislative CO₂ ton prices hardly influence logistics networks.     

An accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm for sustainable supply chain network design under uncertainty: A case study of medical needle and syringe supply chain

This paper proposes a multi-objective possibilistic programming model to design a sustainable medical supply chain network under uncertainty considering conflicting economic, environmental and social objectives. Effective social and environmental life cycle assessment-based methods are incorporated in the model to estimate the relevant environmental and social impacts. An accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm utilizing three efficient acceleration mechanisms is devised to cope with computational complexity of solving the proposed model. Computational analysis is also provided by using a medical industrial case study to present the significance of the proposed model as well as the efficiency of the accelerated Benders decomposition algorithm.