PhD thesis,
Effective food supply chains: generating, modelling and evaluating supply chain scenarios
Wageningen Universiteit, Netherlands, (September 2000)
Abstract
The research described in this thesis aimed at ! obtaining insight
into the applicability of the concept Supply Chain Management (SCM)
in food supply chains (SCs) from a logistical point of view, and
" finding an efficient and effective method to analyse and redesign
the SC to improve SC performance. Via a multidisciplinary literature
research the concept of SCM was defined and a generic list of SCM
redesign principles was generated. Three case studies were used to
devise a research method on the generation, modelling and evaluation
of SC scenarios. Central elements in this method are ! the focus
on the identification and management of the sources of uncertainties
in SC decision making processes, and " the use of simulation and
field tests to evaluate SC scenarios. A modelling framework was developed
in this research that captures the relevant concepts of the SC system
needed to adequately model and simulate the dynamic behaviour of
food SCs. In each case study a new SC scenario could be identified
that performed considerably better than the current scenario.
