Inventory, logistics, and transportation
Ibrahim Madugu Abdulrahman; Umar Ali Umar; Ayodeji Nathaniel Oyedeji
Abstract
Despite being the 16th-largest tomato producer in the world with the potential to dominate tomato exports, Nigeria still faces challenges, including a lack of crucial production inputs, low yields, outdated technology, significant postharvest losses (PHL), and a lack of infrastructure for processing ...
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Despite being the 16th-largest tomato producer in the world with the potential to dominate tomato exports, Nigeria still faces challenges, including a lack of crucial production inputs, low yields, outdated technology, significant postharvest losses (PHL), and a lack of infrastructure for processing and promotion. Although the PHL in tomato production and promotion are well understood worldwide, Nigeria still has a sizable knowledge gap in postharvest handling and management. So, to evaluate the perspectives of the key players (farmers, traders/middlemen, transporters/logistics, and processors) in this value chain, this study constructed a zone-specific production system, postharvest handling, and losses model for tomatoes. Three hundred fifty samples from the four districts comprised the value chain actors' survey, comprising 200 farmers, 115 traders/middlemen, 25 transporters/logistics, and 10 processors. A standardised questionnaire was used to perform the one-on-one quantitative interview. The study's findings indicated that most transporters had at least two losses, and at least one dealer had lost money. The main players in the supply chain cited problems such as the lack of market avenues, storage technologies, processing factories, close markets, and inefficient transportation methods. Furthermore, loading and unloading, breakage, rot, and accidents account for most tomato PHL losses. Therefore, it is advised that Nigeria's rich tomato market be exploited by establishing suitable processing facilities, appropriate sponsorship for farmers, and developing suitable transportation routes.
Inventory, logistics, and transportation
Adel Pourghader Chobar; Majid Sabk Ara; Samaneh Moradi Pirbalouti; Mehdi Khadem; Saeed Bahrami
Abstract
During natural and abnormal accidents, many people are injured, and a large number of wastes and rubbish are produced, so it is necessary to collect the injured and take them to treatment centers, which must be done in the reaction phase. Also, in the recovery and reconstruction phase, since a large ...
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During natural and abnormal accidents, many people are injured, and a large number of wastes and rubbish are produced, so it is necessary to collect the injured and take them to treatment centers, which must be done in the reaction phase. Also, in the recovery and reconstruction phase, since a large amount of hazardous and non-hazardous waste is produced during accidents, effective measures should be taken to collect and recycle them if necessary. Both of these cases can be considered as a reverse logistics problem. This paper investigates reverse logistics planning in the response, improvement, and reconstruction phases in earthquake conditions. Due to the nature of the problem, it is expected that we will face a multi-objective problem, and the problem condition causes the issue of uncertainty. By increasing the dimensions of the problem, the NSGA-II meta-heuristic algorithm has been used to solve the two-objective model of the problem and the result indicates that the proposed solution algorithm works well and the quality of the answer and its solution time are appropriate. The results indicate that as capacity increases, the number of distribution centers built to meet demand decreases and the distribution center constructed may be far from some shelters, leading to increased transportation costs. According to the mentioned issues, this research uses reverse logistics in the response and recovery phases. Also, information about Tehran city will be used as data for the case study.