Title: Energy efficiency optimisation in supply chain networks: impact of inventory management

Authors: Charlène Niesseron; Rémy Glardon; Nicolas Zufferey; Mohsen A. Jafari

Addresses: LGPP, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland ' LGPP, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland ' Geneva School of Economics and Management, GSEM – University of Geneva, Uni-Mail, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland ' Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering, School of Engineering Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 96 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854, USA

Abstract: This work describes the development of a model to address sustainability in supply chain networks in comparing environmental impact to cost optimisation. It takes into account the effect of inventory management policies on energy consumption in transportation and storage. This work first focusses on a base case with one product type, involving one transportation link (from the supplier to the distributor) and one storage node. In addition, an extended case is considered, including additionally the transportation from the distributor to the customers. Based on real data, our results show that the most energy efficient solution is not necessarily detrimental to the economic profits. Also, a higher performance does not always mean a higher energy use: increasing the service level can indeed decrease the energy use. Finally, our analysis shows that the model can be extended to an entire supply chain network.

Keywords: energy; optimisation; supply chain; transportation; inventory management; simulation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSCIM.2020.107237

International Journal of Supply Chain and Inventory Management, 2020 Vol.3 No.2, pp.93 - 123

Received: 21 Feb 2018
Accepted: 27 Mar 2019
Published online: 11 May 2020 *

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