Business process reengineering of a supply chain and a traceability system: A case study

Topological Structure of Single-Valued Neutrosophic Hesitant Fuzzy Sets and Data Analysis for Uncertain Supply Chains

From production to retail, the food supply chain (FSC) encompasses all stages of food production. Food is now transmitted across continents over long ranges. People depend on supply chains for basic necessities such as food, water, drinks, etc. Any disruption in these shipment pipelines poses a serious threat to human life. Supplier selection (SS) has been identified as a crucial component of FSC, which has been contemplated as a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem in many studies. The failure of some specific MCDM problems is due to failure in contemplating the relationships between alternatives under uncertain circumstances. To address such challenges, we present a contemporary method for designating green suppliers based on single-valued neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy (SVNHF) information, in which the input assessment is taken into account using single-valued neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy numbers (SVNHFNs). The foremost purpose of this analysis is to construct a topological structure on single-valued neutrosophic hesitant fuzzy sets (SVNHFSs) as well as to validate several key properties with examples. We discuss certain properties of SVNHF topology such as the SVNHF closure, SVNHF interior, SVNHF exterior, and SVNHF frontier. We also examine the conceptualization of the SVNHF dense set and SVNHF base in SVNHF topology using comprehensive examples. Eventually, to demonstrate and validate the superiority and inferiority ranking (SIR) method and choice value (CV) method in terms of their rationality and scientific basis, a real-world example of supplier selection in a food supply chain is provided. A comparative analysis is also performed to discuss the symmetry, validity and advantage of the proposed techniques.

Traceability Models and Traceability Systems to Accelerate the Transition to a Circular Economy: A Systematic Review

Research and implementation efforts and investment in the circular economy are rising sharply. With the high stakes associated with achievements in the field, an increasing emphasis on evaluation, transparency and accountability are to be expected. All require high-quality data, methodologies and tools that are able to improve results and to assess and document the implementation processes and outcomes. A challenging key issue in the implementation of a circular economy is ensuring coordination, control and transparency within a network of parties. Traceability models and systems are vital pillars of such an endeavor, but a preliminary search of the available literature revealed a rather unstable and fragmented research field and practice. The objective of this systematic review was to examine those studies discussing traceability models and traceability systems while connecting traceability capacities and outputs to implement the principles of the circular economy. The literature databases were searched on 6 January 2020, with an update for the entire year of 2020. Overall, 49 studies were included. By addressing eight specific research questions, we found that a link between traceability and the circular economy is yet to be established. Sound research and practice documentation are required to establish evidence regarding this connection, including methodologies that are able to support the design and implementation of business- and lifecycle-oriented, value-based traceability models and traceability systems, along with thorough evaluation methods and tools incorporating economic, social and environmental perspectives.

Enhancing Food Supply Chain Security through the Use of Blockchain and TinyML

Food safety is a fundamental right in modern societies. One of the most pressing problems nowadays is the provenance of food and food-related products that citizens consume, mainly due to several food scares and the globalization of food markets, which has resulted in food supply chains that extend beyond nations or even continent boundaries. Food supply networks are characterized by high complexity and a lack of openness. There is a critical requirement for applying novel techniques to verify and authenticate the origin, quality parameters, and transfer/storage details associated with food. This study portrays an end-to-end approach to enhance the security of the food supply chain and thus increase the trustfulness of the food industry. The system aims at increasing the transparency of food supply chain monitoring systems through securing all components that those consist of. A universal information monitoring scheme based on blockchain technology ensures the integrity of collected data, a self-sovereign identity approach for all supply chain actors ensures the minimization of single points of failure, and finally, a security mechanism, that is based on the use of TinyML’s nascent technology, is embedded in monitoring devices to mitigate a significant portion of malicious behavior from actors in the supply chain.

Traceability of Sustainability and Safety in Fishery Supply Chain Management Systems Using Radio Frequency Identification Technology

At present, sustainability and emerging technology are the main issues in any supply chain management (SCM) sector. At the same time, the ongoing pandemic is increasing consumers' concerns about food safety, processing, and distribution, which should meet sustainability requirements. Thus, supervision and monitoring of product quality with symmetric information traceability are important in fresh food and fishery SCM. Food safety and traceability systems based on blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), wireless sensor networks (WSN), and radio frequency identification (RFID) provide reliability from production to consumption. This review focuses on RFID-based traceability systems in fisheries' SCM, which have been employed globally to ensure fish quality and security, and summarizes their advantages in real-time applications. The results of this study will help future researchers to improve consumers' trust in fisheries SCM. Thus, this review aims to provide guidelines and solutions for enhancing the reliability of RFID-based traceability in food SCM systems so to ensure the integrity and transparency of product information.

Science Mapping of Tourist Mobility 1980–2019. Technological Advancements in the Collection of the Data for Tourist Traceability

The tracking of tourist movements is an essential aspect in the management of sustainable tourist destinations. The current information and communication technologies provide innovative ways of collecting data on tourist movements, but it is still necessary to evaluate tools and methods of study for this challenge. At this point, mobile technologies are the best candidate for this task. Given the relevance of the topic, this paper proposes a mapping science analysis of publications on “movement of tourists” and “traceability.” It has been carried out in the two main sources WOS and SCOPUS. The term “traceability” is brought from industry and technology areas to be applied to the tourist movement/mobility tracking and management. The methodological scheme is based on a selection of search criteria with combinations of terms. The sources of specialized information in applied social sciences and technology were then selected. From there, the searches have been executed for their subsequent analysis in three stages—(I) relevance analysis filtering the results to obtain the most pertinent; (II) analysis of articles with similarity thematic, authors, journals or citations; (III) analysis of selected papers as input for the mapping analysis using Citespace. The automatic naming of clusters under the selected processing confirms that the analysis of movements is a valid scientific trend but research-oriented from the perspective of traceability is non-existent, so this approach is novel and complementary to existing ones and a potential contribution to knowledge about tourist movements. Finally, a set of methodological considerations and a classification of information capture tools are proposed. In this classification, mobile technology is the best option to enable tourist movement analysis.

Structural model of perishable food supply chain quality (PFSCQ) to improve sustainable organizational performance

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of perishable food supply chain quality (PFSCQ) and to suggest a structural model that counts the influence of PFSCQ practices on organizational sustainable performance.

Design/methodology/approach

On the basis of comprehensive literature review, PFSCQ highly significant practices were examined and designated. These practices were classified into four dimensions: upstream quality (supplier quality), downstream quality (customer focus), internal quality (process and logistics quality) and support practices (top management leadership and commitment to quality, quality of human resource, quality of information and supply chain integration). The measurement instrument of organizational sustainable performance was also build on, containing three aspects: economic, environmental and social performance.

Findings

An inventive conceptual model that specifies a comprehensive image cover up core dimensions of PFSCQ and various aspects of organizational sustainable performance was suggested. This conceptual model can be used as “a directive” for theory developing and measurement instrument development of PFSCQ practices and organizational sustainable performance. More prominently, on the road to achieving additional insight, an extensive structural model that makes out direct and indirect relationships between PFSCQ practices and organizational sustainable performance was also developed. Practitioners can apply this model as “a path plan” for implementing PFSCQ practices to improve organizational sustainable performance.

Originality/value

The integration of quality and supply chain even now remains inadequate in the literature. Consequently, it is required to have a more focused approach in assessing quality issues inside the upstream, internal and downstream of the supply chain. This study concentrates on the practices which make better quality aspects of the supply chain, known as PFSCQ practices. Suggested research models in this paper contribute to conceptual frameworks for theory building in PFSCQ and sustainable organizational performance. It is also expected that this research can suggest a useful direction for determining and implementing PFSCQ practices as well as make possible further studies in this arena.

A refined framework of information sharing in perishable product supply chains

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between information sharing and performance of perishable product supply chains (PPSC). Building on transaction cost economics (TCE), organisational information processing theory (OIPT), and contingency theory (CT), this study proposes a theoretical framework to guide future research into information sharing in perishable product supply chains (IS-PPSC).

Design/methodology/approach

Using the systematic literature review methodology, 48 peer-reviewed articles are carefully selected, mapped, and assessed. Template analysis is performed to unravel the relationship mechanisms between information sharing and PPSC performance.

Findings

The authors find that the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance is currently unclear, and there is inconsistency in the positioning of information sharing among constructs and variables in the IS-PPSC literature. This implies a requirement to refine the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance. The review also revealed that the role of perishable product characteristics has largely been ignored in existing research.

Originality/value

This study applies relevant multiple theoretical perspectives to overcome the ambiguity of the IS-PPSC literature and contributes nine propositions to guide future research. Accordingly, this study contributes to the refined roles of relationship uncertainty, environmental uncertainty, information sharing capabilities, and perishable product characteristics in shaping the relationship between information sharing and PPSC performance.

Design and Development of an e-Platform for Supporting Liquid Food Supply Chain Monitoring and Traceability

In this paper, the deliverables of a research project are presented, which aims at the development of a webbased platform capable of supporting the traceability of liquid products like milk, wine and olive oil. First, it includes the design of a supply chain reference model and the identification of the data required for the efficient operation of the traceability system. The main elements of the proposed model defined in this paper are the entities, stages, events, and processes. The reference model consists of three distinct phases that represent stages of real-life supply chains. Each of these phases is defined by certain interactions between the above basic elements. Additionally, the proposed e-platform is based on the above reference model aiming to follow and register the production and distribution processes of the raw materials, semi-finals, and final products that are used in the examined industry.