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Recent Trends in Sustainable Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities in...
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Recent Trends in Sustainable Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities in the Era of Crises and Disruption

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (14 November 2023) | Viewed by 2461

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ahmed Saif

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Interests: sustainable supply chains; hybrid renewable energy systems; portfolio optimization; large-scale optimization; decision making under uncertainty; simulation-optimization
Prof. Dr. Claver Diallo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Interests: remanufacturing & sustainability; Industry 5.0; closed-loop supply chains design and management; reliability & availability optimization; maintenance engineering & management; project scheduling & management
Prof. Dr. Uday Venkatadri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
Interests: Industry 4.0; production-distribution systems; sustainable supply chain management; production planning and control; reliability and maintenance; facilities planning and design

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability will publish a Special Issue dedicated to “Recent Trends in Sustainable Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities in the Era of Crises and Disruption”.

Global supply chains have been undergoing profound changes, driven by economic, political, social, and technological factors. On the one hand, the growing concerns about environmental and social issues, e.g., climate change and environmental justice, have intensified consumers’ calls for action by governments and corporations toward more environmentally sustainable and socially responsible supply chains. On the other hand, supply chains have experienced severe and unprecedented disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and shifts in global geopolitical and economic conditions, e.g., the rise of protectionism, trade restrictions, and armed conflicts. Furthermore, disruptive technologies such as electrified transportation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain and digital twins are revolutionizing the supply chain industry and enabling substantial gains in efficiency, security, safety and reliability to be attained. These factors, among others, present serious challenges but also promising opportunities to policy-makers and practitioners, and open new venues for research.

With this in mind, this Special Issue aims to attract and collect original research papers that address emerging trends and challenges in the area of sustainable supply chains.  This issue will provide readers with high-quality contributions exploring and dealing with contemporary systemic and policy issues related to supply chain design and management. Examples include the integrability of new technologies, risk assessment and mitigation strategies, dealing with the dynamic and uncertain nature of modern supply chains, and the impacts of government environmental policies and consumers’ preferences. Both empirical and theoretical research is invited. Studies that apply operations research, machine learning, and data analytics (descriptive, predictive or prescriptive) techniques are strongly encouraged, as long as useful managerial insights could be drawn from their results. This issue will complement and extend the existing literature on sustainable supply chains by focusing on the pressing issues faced by the industry in a rapidly changing world.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Environmental sustainability and social responsibility in supply chain operations;
  • Impact of global crises (economic, environmental, political) on sustainable supply chains;
  • Supply chain disruption, interruption and resilience;
  • Risk assessment and mitigation in supply chain design and operation;
  • Reverse and closed-loop supply chain;
  • Integrating new technologies (blockchain, digital twins, physical internet) within supply chain operations;
  • Supply chain and Industry 4.0;
  • Cold chains for perishable products (food, vaccine, etc.).

Dr. Ahmed Saif
Prof. Dr. Claver Diallo
Prof. Dr. Uday Venkatadri
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable supply chains
  • disruptions resilience
  • risk mitigation
  • uncertainty
  • Industry 4.0

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

29 pages, 895 KiB  
Article
An Adaptive Sequential Decision-Making Approach for Perishable Food Procurement, Storage and Distribution Using Hyperconnected Logistics
by Meet Patel, Uday Venkatadri, Claver Diallo, Ahsan Habib and Amirsalar Malekahmadi
Sustainability 2024, 16(1), 98; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su16010098 - 21 Dec 2023
Viewed by 1016
Abstract
The fast-food industry currently relies on frozen ingredients to reduce the cost of procurement of raw materials. In recent years, consumers have started to curb their habit of eating out from fast-food chain restaurants due to the growing concerns for unhealthy menu choices [...] Read more.
The fast-food industry currently relies on frozen ingredients to reduce the cost of procurement of raw materials. In recent years, consumers have started to curb their habit of eating out from fast-food chain restaurants due to the growing concerns for unhealthy menu choices made primarily from highly processed and/or frozen food ingredients. To address these issues, some organizations in the fast-food industry have started to offer menus with fresh unfrozen ingredients sourced locally or regionally. This paper addresses the problem of integrating sourcing, storage, and distribution strategies for a fast-food restaurant chain at the regional level. We present an adaptive sequential optimization decision-making approach for procurement, storage, and distribution of perishable food products to multi-unit restaurants at the regional level. This solution approach uses shelf-life considerations in developing a procurement and distribution strategy for fresh produce in the era of hyperconnected logistics. Three models are developed using Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP). First, a procurement model is developed to find the cost-effective supplier for each produce category based on shelf life. Then, a distribution model is developed to find the cost-optimal solution for distributing produce to multiple restaurant locations considering weight, volume, and operation hours. Finally, an integrated model is developed to optimally combine procurement and distribution options generated by the first two models to minimize costs while respecting total shelf-life constraints. Numerical experiments based on realistic data are carried out to show that the proposed sequential approach yields valid decisions and presents the effects of price, shelf-life, and demand changes on the supply chain. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Sustainable Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities in the Era of Crises and Disruption)
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23 pages, 863 KiB  
Article
Optimizing Process-Improvement Efforts for Supply Chain Operations under Disruptions: New Structural Results
by Emre Berk, Onurcan Ayas and M. Ali Ülkü
Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 13117; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su151713117 - 31 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 999
Abstract
Rampant disruptions have probed the fragility of supply chains: Renewed perspectives and comprehensive operational models are needed to enhance resiliency and sustainability in business. This paper proposes a new inventory management model that explicitly integrates process improvement efforts to improve supply chain sustainability [...] Read more.
Rampant disruptions have probed the fragility of supply chains: Renewed perspectives and comprehensive operational models are needed to enhance resiliency and sustainability in business. This paper proposes a new inventory management model that explicitly integrates process improvement efforts to improve supply chain sustainability through the better use of capital (materials, assets, and technology) and labor (workforce and know-how). Under a desired service-level constraint, we study reducing setup (fixed) costs when they are expressed in terms of economic production functions of two (input) decision variables: the level of capital (e.g., process change, and technology investments) and the level of labor required. This research is motivated by lean manufacturing practices, which rely on shaping the operating environment and operating optimally within that business environment. Based on mathematical modeling and analysis, we provide closed-form optimality expressions and structural results that lend themselves to decision insights. In particular, we provide, along with illustrative numerical examples, results on the sensitivity of setup-reduction efforts to demand rates, variability, and explicit expressions for determining the required labor and capital resources. A generalization of the model for carbon emissions is also presented. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Trends in Sustainable Supply Chains: Challenges and Opportunities in the Era of Crises and Disruption)
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