Sustainable supply chain design: an application example in local business retail

Abstract

The paper demonstrates the need to consider different sustainability aspects in supply chain redesign and optimization problems. To this end a simulation model of local pharmaceutical business retail is presented as application example. Three different sustainability aspects are considered (technical sustainability, economic sustainability and environmental sustainability) when investigating two different problems: the addition of new pharmacies to the supply chain and optimization of the supply chain routes. The main goals are to understand how new potential customers can be added to the supply chain while reducing the negative impact on the customers’ satisfaction level (technical sustainability), how to optimize the routes followed by each transportation vector (technical, economic and environmental sustainability) and how to compare different solutions in terms of truck fleets in order to reduce CO₂ emissions (environmental and economic sustainability).