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Environmental and economic issues arising from the pooling of SMEs’ supply chains: case study of the food industry in western France

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Abstract

Supply chains pooling is an emergent strategy for improving logistical performance. The pooling concept consists in transferring the effort of coordination for consolidating independent operators’ flows towards an ad hoc pooled system. This organisation results from a design of a pooled logistics network by merging different supply chains to share transport and logistics resources in order to improve logistics performance. In this case study, the pooling concept is applied to a collection of small and medium-sized western France food suppliers serving the same retail chain. In order to demonstrate the efficiency of the pooling, the existing transport organisation was compared to various pooling scenarios. The methodology consisted in accessing a current situation through a survey of the flow of goods at one of the main distribution centre of the studied supply network, then comparing this situation with three other pooling scenarios. Using supply network optimisation models, these scenarios were assessed considering cost and CO2 emission levels. This study demonstrates the interest of transport pooling in the case independent shipping networks of Small and Medium Enterprises compared to the partially know existing strategies adopted by logistics service providers for less than truckload shipments. Moreover, it suggests that there is no dominant supply organisation and that transport pooling is a new stimulus for network design. These results also bring new research perspectives for generalisation of pooling and gain sharing within large coalitions.

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Notes

  1. The surface area of the 12 departments in the study is referenced at the site http://www.insee.fr/en/themes/tableau.asp?ref_id=nattef01209.

  2. L1 metrics: d(x1y1, x2y2) = |x1 − x2| + |y1 − y2|.

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Acknowledgments

We appreciate the support of the French Enterprises and Entrepreneurs Federation (FEEF) in this research. We also thank the Agence de l’environnement et de la maîtrise de l’énergie (ADEME).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de Gestion Scientifique (CGS), Mines ParisTech, 60 Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75272, Paris Cedex 06, France

    Shenle Pan & Eric Ballot

  2. Centre de CAO-Robotique (CAOR), Mathématiques et Systèmes, Mines ParisTech, 60 Boulevard Saint-Michel, 75272, Paris Cedex 06, France

    Frédéric Fontane

  3. Interuniversity Research Center on Enterprise Networks, Logistics and Transportation (CIRRELT), Faculty of Administration Sciences, Université Laval, Quebec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Driss Hakimi

Authors
  1. Shenle Pan
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  2. Eric Ballot
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  3. Frédéric Fontane
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  4. Driss Hakimi
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Correspondence to Shenle Pan.

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Pan, S., Ballot, E., Fontane, F. et al. Environmental and economic issues arising from the pooling of SMEs’ supply chains: case study of the food industry in western France. Flex Serv Manuf J 26, 92–118 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10696-012-9162-3

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