scholarly journals Design of global sustainable supply chains

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Dian Trihastuti

Increasing concern about the sustainability of supply chain operations is motivating companies and organizations to pursue strategies to reduce their contribution to global environmental and social negative impacts. While most papers in the field of sustainable supply chains have focused on economic and environmental performance at the firm level, recently some studies have considered the problem at the national level. However, there still exists a gap in quantitatively modeling social impacts, together with environmental and economic impacts, at the global level. To fill this gap, this research presents a multi-objective mathematical model for the design and planning of a supply chain, integrating the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, environmental, and social). In this research, the economic dimension of sustainability is addressed by considering the costs of the supply chain. Then MRIO, a national input-output table that describes the interdependencies between countries and economic sectors, is integrated with national environmental and social impacts to construct a triple bottom line (3BL) approach by industrial sectors. This model supports decision making by including both direct impacts, as well as indirect impacts, associated with upstream supply chain paths. This expands the range of impact considered in sustainable performance measurement both within and beyond the supply chain boundary. The integrated model can improve a company's ability to select supply chain partners based on a wider range of criteria, rather than being based on economics alone. A case study is conducted that considers three tiers of the transportation and equipment supply chain, which consists of six industrial sectors that are part of a larger system of fourteen industrial sectors operating across seventeen of the largest manufacturing countries in the world. The model is solved using a [epsilon]-constraint method; and the resulting Pareto optimal curves show the tradeoffs between the economic, environmental and social dimensions. The results reveal that indirect economic activities dominate when contributing to the environmental and social impact of the whole system. Expanding the scope of sustainability changes supply chain configuration decisions. Therefore, the primary result from this research is that firms and industry sectors need to change their focus from solely on economic aspects and include environmental and social aspects in supply chain decision making at operational and/or strategic levels of decisions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 8340
Author(s):  
Petchprakai Sirilertsuwan ◽  
Sébastien Thomassey ◽  
Xianyi Zeng

Few studies on supply location decisions focus on enhancing triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability in supply chains; they rarely employ objective quantifiable measurements which help ensure consistent and transparent decisions or reveal relationships between business and environmental trade-off criteria. Therefore, we propose a decision-making approach for objectively selecting multi-tier supply locations based on cost and carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) from manufacturing, logistics, and sustainability-assurance activities, including certificate implementation, sample-checking, living wage and social security payments, and factory visits. Existing studies and practices, logic models, activity-based costing, and feedback from an application and experts help develop the approach. The approach helps users in location decisions and long-term supply chain planning by revealing relationships among factors, TBL sustainability, and potential risks. This approach also helps users evaluate whether supplier prices are too low to create environmental and social compliance. Its application demonstrates potential and flexibility in revealing both lowest- and optimized-cost and CO2e supply chains, under various contexts and constraints, for different markets. Very low cost/CO2e supply chains have proximity between supply chain stages and clean manufacturing energy. Considering sustainability-assurance activities differentiates our approach from existing studies, as the activities significantly impact supply chain cost and CO2e in low manufacturing unit scenarios.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 13623
Author(s):  
Sini Laari ◽  
Tomi Solakivi ◽  
Anu Bask ◽  
Juuso Töyli ◽  
Lauri Ojala

This paper contributes to a less-studied area on how a firm’s position in the supply chain influences triple-bottom-line considerations in strategic decision making. We also contribute to previous research on a nuanced understanding of unabsorbed organisational slack as an antecedent to the triple-bottom-line dimensions of sustainability. The research data comprises survey data and financial reporting data from 508 manufacturing and trading firms operating in Finland, divided among four supply chain tiers. The economic dimension dominates the decision making on all tiers, followed by social and environmental considerations, resembling the shape of Mickey Mouse. Unabsorbed organisational slack is negatively related to the importance of economic considerations and positively related to environmental considerations. The results help firms in evaluating their position in terms of sustainability and in their redesigning efforts accordingly. The findings will also be useful in terms of promoting sustainability practices among supply chain members and policymakers in their practical efforts towards sustainable development.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 668-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alireza Ahmadian F.F. ◽  
Taha H. Rashidi ◽  
Ali Akbarnezhad ◽  
S. Travis Waller

Purpose Enhancing sustainability of the supply process of construction materials is challenging and requires accounting for a variety of environmental and social impacts on top of the traditional, mostly economic, impacts associated with a particular decision involved in the management of the supply chain. The economic, environmental, and social impacts associated with various components of a typical supply chain are highly sensitive to project and market specific conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide decision makers with a methodology to account for the systematic trade-offs between economic, environmental, and social impacts of supply decisions. Design/methodology/approach This paper proposes a novel framework for sustainability assessment of construction material supply chain decisions by taking advantage of the information made available by customized building information models (BIM) and a number of different databases required for assessment of life cycle impacts. Findings The framework addresses the hierarchy of decisions in the material supply process, which consists of four levels including material type, source of supply, supply chain structure, and mode of transport. The application is illustrated using a case study. Practical implications The proposed framework provides users with a decision-making method to select the most sustainable material alternative available for a building component and, thus, may be of great value to different parties involved in design and construction of a building. The multi-dimensional approach in selection process based on various economic, environmental, and social indicators as well as the life cycle perspective implemented through the proposed methodology advocates the life cycle thinking and the triple bottom line approach in sustainability. The familiarity of the new generation of engineers, architects, and contractors with this approach and its applications is essential to achieve sustainability in construction. Originality/value A decision-making model for supply of materials is proposed by integrating the BIM-enabled life cycle assessment into supply chain and project constraints management. The integration is achieved through addition of a series of attributes to typical BIM. The framework is supplemented by a multi-attribute decision-making module based on the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution to account for the trade-offs between different economic and environmental impacts associated with the supply decisions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6038
Author(s):  
Antônio Zanin ◽  
Cristian Baú Dal Magro ◽  
Diones Kleinibing Bugalho ◽  
Francieli Morlin ◽  
Paulo Afonso ◽  
...  

All companies in agribusiness supply chains need to be aware of the best use of available resources, which demands an integrated assessment of environmental, economic and social aspects, i.e., the Triple Bottom Line (TBL). Such analysis allows us to get a more balanced and complete understanding of the real performance of companies, supply chains and industries. Companies in the upstream of agribusinesses supply chains present some limitations, but can contribute significantly to the overall sustainability of the entire value chain. The objective of this research was to understand the role of the drivers of sustainability in dairy farming from a TBL perspective, such as assistance to producers and the value chain, and the use of better technology and management practices. A sample of 54 rural farms in the dairy supply chain of the western region of Santa Catarina, Brazil, was used to test four hypotheses about what can drive sustainability. Furthermore, first- and second-order structural equation models using SMART PLS software were used for the analysis of the data. The results obtained show that social sustainability is positively influenced by the use of good management practices, and the latter, as well as public policies, positively influence economic sustainability. Furthermore, it was found that improvements in production techniques positively influence environmental sustainability, and this is mostly influenced by the use of good management practices, and less so by policies directed at the supply chain. Finally, from the analysis of the second-order variable for sustainability, it was highlighted that the economic dimension prevails in the eyes of the farmers, as the main dimension of sustainability, and that environmental aspects are still neglected.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 1054-1057
Author(s):  
Bindu Swetha Pasuluri ◽  
Anuradha S G ◽  
Manga J ◽  
Deepak Karanam

An unanticipated outburst of pneumonia of inexperienced in Wuhan, , China stated in December 2019. World health organization has recognized pathogen and termed it COVID-19. COVID-19 turned out to be a severe urgency in the entire world. The influence of this viral syndrome is now an intensifying concern. Covid-19 has changed our mutual calculus of ambiguity. It is more world-wide in possibility, more deeply , and much more difficult than any catastrophe that countries and organizations have ever faced. The next normal requires challenging ambiguity head-on and building it into decision-making. It is examined that every entity involved in running supply chains would require through major as employee, product, facility protocols, and transport would have to be in place. It is an urgent need of structuring to apply the lessons well-read for our supply chain setup. With higher managers now being aware of the intrinsic hazards in their supply chain, key and suggestions-recommendations will help to guide leader to commit to a newly planned, more consistent supply chain setup. Besides, the employees’ mental health is also a great concern.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen S.Y. CHEN

This is a multidisciplinary study on operationalizing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in humanitarian operations through supply chain management methods. It is motivated by the belief that for SDGs to be pursued in humanitarian operations, they need to be contextualized in the idiosyncratic settings and approached systematically. Towards this end, this paper develops and operationalizes a strategic sustainable humanitarian supply chain framework using the design science approach. The study starts with analyzing the humanitarian operations characteristics and identifying the critical supply chain capabilities required for sustainable operations. It then re-conceptualizes sustainability in the humanitarian context and proposes a formula of sustainability performance in humanitarian operations. After that, the humanitarian supply chain structural components are delineated and decomposed into operational elements in order to identify the configurations that lead to optimal sustainability performance. The findings then converge into a framework to enable the identification of context-contingent sustainable supply chain strategies in humanitarian operations. This paper makes three contributions to SDG research: 1) it contextualizes sustainability in the humanitarian setting through postulating the concept and formula of net sustainability value as the single bottom line in humanitarian operations; 2) it increases operationality of SDGs in the humanitarian sector through the design of a strategic framework for sustainable humanitarian supply chains; and 3) it increases the interdisciplinarity of SDG research by using a generic supply chain framework that can be applied to integrate multilevel multidisciplinary sustainability studies.


2011 ◽  
Vol 267 ◽  
pp. 958-962
Author(s):  
Jiang Hong

In this paper, we set risk attitude into decision making research for the supply chain manage. We focus on the information management. We discuss the stable states and the stochastically stable distribution for the fake game in the supply chain. We find there always exist information fake behaviors of low-yield suppliers. And, the less risk averse suppliers are, the more information fake they use.


Author(s):  
Jay R. Brown ◽  
Maxim A. Bushuev ◽  
Andrey A. Kretinin ◽  
Alfred L. Guiffrida

In today's supply chains, green and sustainable business practices have become an integral part of long-term strategy as well as the day-to-day operations, and sourcing and logistics play fundamental roles in ensuring the success of sustainable supply chains. In this chapter, we review recent research on three classes of decision models that are used in the logistics and sourcing functions of sustainable supply chains. Specifically, we examine and summarize recent developments in sustainable decision models for supplier selection, inventory lot-sizing, and last-mile delivery. Our review of the green and sustainable features found in these three models results in a single-source consolidation of models used in sustainable sourcing and logistics. This review may prove useful to researchers who focus on sustainable supply chain management and to practitioners who seek to expand their toolkit of models for the management and control of their supply chain.


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