Reliable Biomass Supply Chain Design under Feedstock Seasonality and Probabilistic Facility Disruptions

Zhixue Liu, Shukun Wang and Yanfeng Ouyang
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Zhixue Liu: School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 403374, China
Shukun Wang: School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 403374, China
Yanfeng Ouyang: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-18

Abstract: While biomass has been recognized as an important renewable energy source which has a range of positive impacts on the economy, environment, and society, the existence of feedstock seasonality and risk of service disruptions at collection facilities potentially compromises the efficiency and reliability of the energy supply system. In this paper, we consider reliable supply chain design for biomass collection against feedstock seasonality and time-varying disruption risks. We optimize facility location, inventory, biomass quantity, and shipment decisions in a multi-period planning horizon setting. A real-world case in Hubei, China is studied to offer managerial insights. Our computational results show that: (1) the disruption risk significantly affects both the optimal facility locations and the supply chain cost; (2) no matter how the failure probability changes, setting backup facilities can significantly decrease the total cost; and (3) the feedstock seasonality does not affect locations of the collection facilities, but it affects the allocations of collection facilities and brings higher inventory cost for the biomass supply chain.

Keywords: biomass; supply chain; inventory; facility location; seasonality; disruption risk (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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