Simulation modelling for food supply chain redesign; integrated decision making on product quality, sustainability and logistics

Abstract

Food supply chains are confronted with increased consumer demands on food quality and sustainability. When redesigning these chains the analysis of food quality change and environmental load of new scenarios is as important as the analysis of efficiency and responsiveness requirements. Simulation tools are often used for supporting decision-making on supply chain (re)design when logistic uncertainties are in place, building on their inherent modelling flexibility. Mostly, the underlying assumption is that product quality is not influenced by or does not influence chain design. Clearly, this is not true for food supply chains, as quality change is intrinsic to the industry. We propose a new integrated approach towards logistics, sustainability and food quality analysis, and implement the approach by introducing a new simulation environment, ALADIN™. It embeds food quality change models and sustainability indicators in discrete event simulation models. A case example illustrates the benefits of its use relating to speed and quality of integrated decision making, but also to creativity in terms of alternative solutions.