Optimal design of the supply chain for the ready mix-concrete production in the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires

CECILIA I. PAULO; CORDOBA, GISELA; IRASSAR, EDGARDO F.

Buenos Aires

Congreso; WCCE11 - 11th WORLD CONGRESS OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING; 2023

AAIQ (Argentinian Association of Chemical Engineers) World Chemical Engineering Council (WCEC) and by the IACCHE ? Interamerican Confederation of Chemical Engineering

A supply chain is an organizational scheme in which the actors of the network coordinate activities that go from the acquisition of the raw material to the provision of the final product. Although supply chain management is a mature field for many subjects, its application to the construction industry has not been systematically addressed for the Latin America and the Caribbean. In Argentina, the ready mix concrete sector presents a not-straightforward scheme divided into small and medium companies, with low technology incorporated. This study proposes a first approximation for the optimal solution of three echelon supply chain for the ready mix-concrete production in the Metropolitan Region of Buenos Aires. The non-linear problem results in 85 equations and 15 variables. The objective function is to minimize the total carbon dioxide emission (CO2eq.) taking into account transportation and production costs of the different concrete raw materials. The result show that for the production of 2.6 million of m3 of concrete the minimum carbon dioxide emissions are 98,5071.4-ton CO2eq. To minimize the CO2eq emissions, only 6% of the ready-mix concrete volume corresponds to concrete made of ordinary Portland cement, while 94% corresponds to concrete made of blended cement with supplementary cementitious material. The developed model results a valuable tool for optimal design of the supply chain of ready mix-concrete production in Argentina and constitutes an initial step to achieve the minimum environmental impact of cement-based building materials.