Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
运输监控、分配及其对食物浪费的影响
Shipment Monitoring, Allocation, and the Impact on Food Waste
摘要
Often advocated for the potential to reduce waste in fresh produce supply chains, sensor technologies enable firms to monitor the condition of each product unit and allocate them to markets at different transportation distances, thereby matching units with shorter shelf lives with closer markets. In this paper, we consider a firm purchasing and transporting a fresh produce product for sale in two destination markets. Postharvest processes cause a proportion of the product to be in risky condition, potentially becoming unsalable (“spoiled”) due to shelf-life deterioration during transportation. With monitoring technology, the firm first determines a purchase quantity and then decides how to allocate each unit (in either good or risky condition) between markets. We characterize the optimal allocation policies, which can be used to efficiently determine the optimal purchase quantity. Our analysis shows that such technology may inadvertently increase total waste by inducing larger purchase quantities; this increase is often, but not always, accompanied by a lower waste rate and improved distribution efficiency. As firms increasingly adopt monitoring technology for shipment allocation, additional policy and managerial attention may be required. Improvements in postharvest processes can strengthen the waste-reduction benefits of monitoring technology. Firms seeking to maintain their sustainability goals can capture most of the profit gains from monitoring by carefully moderating increases in purchase quantities. This paper was accepted by Jeannette Song, operations management. Supplemental Material: The online appendices and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.07382 .
中文摘要
传感器技术常因其在生鲜农产品供应链中减少浪费的潜力而受到倡导，该技术使企业能够监测每个产品单元的状况，并将其分配到运输距离不同的市场，从而将保质期较短的单元与较近的市场相匹配。本文考虑一家企业采购并运输一种生鲜农产品，在两个目的地市场销售。采后过程导致一部分产品处于风险状态，可能因运输过程中保质期恶化而变得无法销售（“变质”）。借助监测技术，企业首先确定采购数量，然后决定如何在市场之间分配每个单元（处于良好或风险状态）。我们刻画了最优分配策略，这些策略可用于高效确定最优采购数量。我们的分析表明，此类技术可能通过诱导更大的采购数量而无意中增加总浪费；这种增加通常（但并非总是）伴随着更低的浪费率和更高的分销效率。随着企业越来越多地采用监测技术进行货运分配，可能需要额外的政策和管理关注。采后过程的改进可以增强监测技术的减废效益。寻求维持可持续发展目标的企业可以通过谨慎调节采购数量的增加来获取监测带来的大部分利润收益。本文由运营管理领域的Jeannette Song接受。补充材料：在线附录和数据文件可在https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2024.07382获取。