Offers a compendium of emerging perspectives on the development of an effective agricultural value chain and the optimization of supply chain management within the agriculture and food sectors. Highlighting theoretical frameworks, real-world applications, and future outlooks, this book is a primary reference source for professionals, students, practitioners, and managers.

Sustainable Food Supply Chains: Planning, Design, and Control through Interdisciplinary Methodologies provides integrated and practicable solutions that aid planners and entrepreneurs in the design and optimization of food production-distribution systems and operations and drives change toward sustainable food ecosystems. With synthesized coverage of the academic literature, this book integrates the quantitative models and tools that address each step of food supply chain operations to provide readers with easy access to support-decision quantitative and practicable methods. Broken into three parts, the book begins with an introduction and problem statement. The second part presents quantitative models and tools as an integrated framework for the food supply chain system and operations design. The book concludes with the presentation of case studies and applications focused on specific food chains. Sustainable Food Supply Chains: Planning, Design, and Control through Interdisciplinary Methodologies will be an indispensable resource for food scientists, practitioners and graduate students studying food systems and other related disciplines. Contains quantitative models and tools that address the interconnected areas of the food supply chain Synthesizes academic literature related to sustainable food supply chains Deals with interdisciplinary fields of research (Industrial Systems Engineering, Food Science, Packaging Science, Decision Science, Logistics and Facility Management, Supply Chain Management, Agriculture and Land-use Planning) that dominate food supply chain systems and operations Includes case studies and applications

The automation of physical and information logistics processes is one of the most challenging developments in logistics but is increasingly necessary in order to adequately deal with the increasing dynamics and uncertainties arising in logistics networks. If the automation of processes in logistics is systematically driven forward today, autonomous logistics systems are even conceivable in the future if the potential of digitalization is exploited. While some companies are already innovating in this area, the majority are still in the early stages of development. This book comprises the articles of a Special Issue on the application areas and potentials of automation in logistics on the path to autonomous logistics systems. The scientific contributions intend to contribute to a lively discourse in practice. The articles cover a broad spectrum of physical and informational automation applications with high practical relevance in individual subareas of logistics (e.g., production and transport) or in connection with the entire logistics network. Topics of IoT applications in intralogistics or holistic approaches of data-driven production logistics as well as autonomous driving or digital twin approaches for intermodal transport chains are covered. The implications for the human factor in logistics networks are also examined, and future research and action areas are identified.

An interdisciplinary framework for managing sustainable agrifood supply chains Supply Chain Management for Sustainable Food Networks provides an up-to-date and interdisciplinary framework for designing and operating sustainable supply chains for agri-food products. Focus is given to decision-making procedures and methodologies enabling policy-makers, managers and practitioners to design and manage effectively sustainable agrifood supply chain networks. Authored by high profile researchers with global expertise in designing and operating sustainable supply chains in the agri-food industry, this book: Features the entire hierarchical decision-making process for managing sustainable agrifood supply chains. Covers knowledge-based farming, management of agricultural wastes, sustainability, green supply chain network design, safety, security and traceability, IT in agrifood supply chains, carbon footprint management, quality management, risk management and policy- making. Explores green supply chain management, sustainable knowledge-based farming, corporate social responsibility, environmental management and emerging trends in agri-food retail supply chain operations. Examines sustainable practices that are unique for agriculture as well as practices that already have been implemented in other industrial sectors such as green logistics and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Supply Chain Management for Sustainable Food Networks provides a useful resource for researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, regulators and C-level executives that deal with strategic decision-making. Post-graduate students in the field of agriculture sciences, engineering, operations management, logistics and supply chain management will also benefit from this book.

The scope of this book is Operations Research methods in Agriculture and a thorough discussion of derived applications in the Agri-food industry. The book summarizes current research and practice in this area and illustrates the development of useful approaches to deal with actual problems arising in the agriculture sector and the agri-food industry. This book is intended to collect in one volume high quality chapters on Methods and Applications in Agriculture and Agri-food industry considering both theoretical issues and application results. Methods applied to problems in agriculture and the agri-food industry include, but are not restricted to, the following themes: Dynamic programming Multi-criteria decision methods Markov decision processes Linear programming Stochastic programming Parameter estimation and knowledge acquisition Learning from data Simulation Descriptive and normative decision tree techniques, including: agent modelling and simulation, and state of the art surveys Each chapter includes some standard and traditional methodology but also some recent research advances. All the applications presented in the chapters have been inspired and motivated by the demands from the agriculture and food production areas.

Agri-Food 4.0: Innovations, Challenges and Strategies addresses new research on digital technologies in the Agri-Food industry, including smart packaging, smart warehousing, effective inventory control, blockchain technology, artificial intelligence, and other Industry 4.0 concepts.

Against the background of global market liberalization, increasing consumer awareness and concerns and the spreading of complex technology, new ways to produce, distribute and consume food are evolving. The organization of agricultural production and distribution systems need to adapt, including the development and maintenance of sustainable business relationships between farmers, food processors and grocery retailers. While agricultural value chains have been promoted for decades, more attention is needed on how to enable economic agents to develop lasting relationships and trust within value chains. Using qualitative and quantitative empirical results, Agri-food Chain Relationships offers an insight into the sustainability of current agribusiness relationships and discusses how these may be improved. Theoretical foundations for analysing agri-food chain relations are considered alongside case studies of different countries, food chains and chain stages regarding the issues of sustainable relationships and trust.