Sustainability in the forest supply chain considering the efficient use of residues and byproducts

CAMPANELLA, SANDRA; CORSANO, GABRIELA; MONTAGNA, JORGE MARCELO

Las Villas

Conferencia; IX Conferencia Científica Internacional Medio Ambiente Siglo XXI; 2015

Universidad Central de Las Villas

Supply chain (SC) globally integrates production units with raw material sources and customers, and coordinates all input and output flows (materials, information, finance, etc.) so that the products are produced and distributed in the right amounts, in appropriate locations and at the right time. These activities involve complex tasks that have different tradeoffs between the involved actors and require significant effort to coordinate the common actions. In particular, the forest SC has many heterogeneous participants, therefore, its integration is a challenging issue. One of the main aspects in the forest industry is the huge amount of generated residues and by-products generating through the wood mechanical transformation, from the harvest to the final product production. The residues use has not receive much attention, and its appropriate and efficient use is affected by many factors, as big involved volume, which increases the transportation cost. Nowadays, residues are burned in order to avoid its accumulation. This generates smoke, ash and gases impacting the environment, increasing the greenhouse effect and modifying the landscape. With the aim of avoiding these drawbacks, in this work a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for the optimal design and planning of the forest SC is proposed. The formulation considers different production alternatives, with the objective of maximizing the net benefit, generating the sustainable design of the overall network. This work is developed considering the particular characteristics of the Argentinean forest industry, but it can be easily adapted for other geographical regions. The proposed approach represents a useful tool for decision making and analysis of different production-distribution scenarios of sustainable SCs.