INGAR   05399
INSTITUTO DE DESARROLLO Y DISEÑO
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
capítulos de libros
Título:
Optimal forest supply chain design including cluster formation
Autor/es:
VANZETTI, NICOLÁS; CORSANO, GABRIELA; MONTAGNA, JORGE M.
Libro:
2nd RCN Conference on Pan American Biofuels and Bioenergy Sustainability
Editorial:
AIChE
Referencias:
Año: 2019; p. 207 - 216
Resumen:
The supply chain (SC) involves a large number of participants, including production units, suppliers and customers. In this network, the production resources must be managed so that the products are adequately produced and distributed to meet customer requirements considering location, quantity and time. The challenge for manufacturing firms is to shift from internal efficiency to SC efficiency. This creates the need to leverage the integration and visibility throughout the SC. In particular, the forest SC has a large number of participants that by their heterogeneity pose interesting integration challenges to be faced.In Argentine, the forest industry is a priority subject defined by the local Ministry of Science and Technology. It represents a sector of high economic attractiveness with great potential for growth, mainly due to the possibilities of improving productivity through new technologies and best and sustainable resources exploitation. Moreover, the continuous increase in energy requirements and the need of new sources of environmentally friendly energy has driven the development of bioenergy, in particular second generation biofuels (pellets, bioethanol). Considering the large amount of wastes generated by the forest industry, biofuel production is an attractive option for adding value to the forest SC. In this work a forest SC involving sawmills, woodboards, pellets, and biorefineries is considered. Taking into account their characteristics, the production scale of the different facilities is a critical topic when selecting the location and sizing of the plants. The installation of large size plants reduces the fixed and operative costs, but increases the transportation costs due to the movements of high volume of materials. Therefore, there is a tradeoff between industry scale and transportation issues. Otherwise, the option of smaller size plants located near to raw material sites seems to be more attractive. Other key elements to be considered in the forest industry are the integration among the different involved production plants as well as an important competition for the use of raw materials, residues and byproducts. These resources can be employed for different uses and shared among facilities. In this sense, grouping plants forming clusters can be a good option to improve resources use, reducing costs and achieving sustainability. This is a particular feature of this industry, which states several alternative integration scenarios, which it is worth to be studied. In order to face the aforementioned challenges, a mathematical framework for the optimal design and strategic planning of a forest SC is presented. The problem is formulated through a mixed integer linear programming model where different decisions are simultaneously considered: facilities location and sizes, material flows, alternative uses of the materials, among others. Raw materials from various sites with different species of trees and qualities, and diverse types of products and byproducts to be distributed in several customer zones are taken into account. A special analysis about clusters installation, the advantages of grouping plants and sharing resources, transportation and production cost, and residues, by-products and products production and distribution, as well as the effect of the production scale in the SC, are considered.