In the last four decades the container as an essential part of a unit-load-concept has achieved undoubted importance in international sea freight transportation. With ever increasing containerization the number of seaport container terminals and competition among them have become quite remarkable. Operations are nowadays unthinkable without effective and efficient use of information technology as well as appropriate optimization (operations research) methods. In this paper we describe and classify the main logistics processes and operations in container terminals and present a survey of methods for their optimization.

Container terminal operation and operations research — a classification and literature review

The current decade sees a considerable growth in worldwide container transportation and with it an indispensable need for optimization. Also the interest in and availability of academic literatures as well as case reports are almost exploding. With this paper an earlier survey which proved to be of utmost importance for the community is updated and extended to provide the current state of the art in container terminal operations and operations research.

Operations research at container terminals: a literature update

On the truck dispatching problem

For the past few years, food safety has become an outstanding problem in China. Since traditional agri-food logistics pattern can not match the demands of the market anymore, building an agri-food supply chain traceability system is becoming more and more urgent. In this paper, we study the utilization and development situation of RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification) and blockchain technology first, and then we analyze the advantages and disadvantages of using RFID and blockchain technology in building the agri-food supply chain traceability system; finally, we demonstrate the building process of this system. It can realize the traceability with trusted information in the entire agri-food supply chain, which would effectively guarantee the food safety, by gathering, transferring and sharing the authentic data of agri-food in production, processing, warehousing, distribution and selling links.

An agri-food supply chain traceability system for China based on RFID & blockchain technology

This paper explores the role of Internet of Things (IoT) and its impact on supply chain management (SCM) through an extensive literature review. Important aspects of IoT in SCM are covered including IoT definition, main IoT technology enablers and various SCM processes and applications. We offer several categorisation of the extant literature, such as based on methodology, industry sector and focus on a classification based on major supply chain processes. In addition, a bibliometric analysis of the literature is also presented. We find that most studies have focused on conceptualising the impact of IoT with limited analytical models and empirical studies. In addition, most studies have focused on the delivery supply chain process and the food and manufacturing supply chains. Areas of future SCM research that can support IoT implementation are also identified.

Internet of things and supply chain management: a literature review

An optimization approach for managing fresh food quality throughout the supply chain

The management of food distribution networks is receiving more and more attention, both in practice and in the scientific literature. In this paper, we review quantitative operations management approaches to food distribution management, and relate this to challenges faced by the industry. Here, our main focus is on three aspects: food quality, food safety, and sustainability. We discuss the literature on three decision levels: strategic network design, tactical network planning, and operational transportation planning. For each of these, we survey the research contributions, discuss the state of the art, and identify challenges for future research.

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/doc/1165266/file.pdf

Quality, safety and sustainability in food distribution : A review of quantitative operations management approaches and challenges

In the production of perishable products such as dairy, meat or bakery goods, the consideration of shelf life in production planning is of particular importance. Retail customers with relatively low inventory turns can benefit significantly from longer product shelf life as wastage and out-of-stock rates decrease. However, in today's production planning and control systems, shelf-life issues with regard to specific products or customers are only seldom accounted for. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to develop Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) models that integrate shelf-life issues into production planning and scheduling. The research is based on an industrial case study of yoghurt production. Relying on the principle of block planning, three different MILP models for weekly production planning are presented that apply a combination of a discrete and continuous representation of time. Overnight production and, hence, the necessity for identifying two different shelf-life values for the same production lot is included in the model formulation. Numerical experiments show that near-optimal solutions can be obtained within reasonable computational time.

Mixed-integer linear programming approaches to shelf-life-integrated planning and scheduling in yoghurt production

This paper is concerned with AGV dispatching in seaport container terminals. Special attention is given to multi-load vehicles which can carry more than one container at a time. The characteristics of this complex application environment and the impact on the AGV dispatching problem are analyzed and various solution techniques considered. For practical application within an online logistics control system, a flexible priority rule based approach is developed, making use of an extended concept of the availability of vehicles. For evaluation reasons, this approach is complemented by an alternative MILP formulation. Finally, the performance of the priority rule based approach and the MILP model are analysed for different scenarios with respect to total lateness of the AGVs. The main focus of the numerical investigation is on evaluating the priority rule based approach for single and dual-load vehicles as well as comparing its performance against the MILP modelling approach.

Dispatching multi-load AGVs in highly automated seaport container terminals

Certain types of food, such as catering foods, decay very rapidly. This paper investigates how the quality of such foods can be improved by shortening the time interval between production and delivery. To this end, we develop an approach that integrates short-term production and distribution planning in an iterative scheme. Further, an aggregation scheme is developed as the interface between the production scheduling and distribution problem. The production scheduling problem is solved through an MILP modeling approach which is based on a block planning formulation. Our implementation shows promising results, elaborated in a numerical investigation, which recollects the real settings of a catering company located in Denmark.

Martin Grunow

Papers

An optimization approach for managing fresh food quality throughout the supply chain

Quality, safety and sustainability in food distribution : A review of quantitative operations management approaches and challenges

Mixed-integer linear programming approaches to shelf-life-integrated planning and scheduling in yoghurt production

Dispatching multi-load AGVs in highly automated seaport container terminals

Integrated production and distribution planning for perishable food products