Optimal forest supply chain design including cluster formation

CORSANO, GABRIELA; MONTAGNA, JORGE M.; VANZETTI, NICOLÁS

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; 2nd RCN Conference on Pan American Biofuels & Bioenergy Sustainability; 2016

AIChE

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.