Optimal wholesale facilities location within the fruit and vegetables supply chain with bimodal transportation options: An LP-MIP heuristic approach

Hamideh Etemadnia, Stephan Goetz, Patrick Canning and Mohammad Sadegh Tavallali

European Journal of Operational Research, 2015, vol. 244, issue 2, 648-661

Abstract: Population growth creates a challenge to food availability and access. To balance supply with growing demand, more food has to move from production to consumption sites. Moreover, demand for locally-grown food is increasing and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeks to develop and strengthen regional and local food systems. This article examines wholesale facility (hub) locations in food supply chain systems on a national scale to facilitate the efficient transfer of food from production regions to consumption locations. It designs an optimal national wholesale or hub location network to serve food consumption markets through efficient connections with production sites. The mathematical formulation is a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem that minimizes total network costs which include costs of transporting goods and locating facilities. A scenario study is used to examine the model's sensitivity to parameter changes, including travel distance, hub capacity, transportation cost, etc. An application is made to the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry. We demonstrate how parameter changes affect the optimal locations and number of wholesale facilities.

Keywords: Optimal hub location; Bimodal transportation; Operation research; Supply chain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ejores:v:244:y:2015:i:2:p:648-661

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2015.01.044

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