Safety and Security in Fresh Good Supply Chain

• Published in: International journal of food engineering Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 545 - 556
• Main Authors: Bruzzone, Agostino G, Longo, Francesco, Massei, Marina, Nicoletti, Letizia, Agresta, Matteo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 01.12.2014
• Subjects: case studies; economic impact; food supply chain; fresh food supply chain; intelligent agents; inventories; modeling; safety and security; sales; simulation; simulation models; supply chain; supply chain attack; supply chain contamination; supply chain recalling; transportation; Italy
• ISSN: 1556-3758; 2194-5764; 1556-3758
• DOI: 10.1515/ijfe-2014-0020

This paper proposes a model aimed at investigating safety and security issues in fresh good supply chain. Particular attention is paid on fresh goods contamination since the increasing complexity of supply chains makes these events more likely to happen. To this end, a discrete event simulator (DES) underpinned by an analytical model has been developed as a support tool for prevention and mitigation. Indeed, the simulation model is able to recreate the disruption wave propagation along the supply chain due to a contamination event as well as the effects on the dynamic evolution of contaminated products demand taking into account complex phenomena like media campaigns. In addition, even the economic impacts in terms of costs (i.e. transportation costs, inventory costs, and lost sales) can be assessed. The potentials of the proposed simulation framework have been investigated in a real case study of a fresh food supply chain located in the north of Italy.