The storage location problem in a coal supply chain: background and methodological approach

Abstract

In order to achieve two main objectives: (1) reduce risk and (2) increase the expected rate of return on invested capital, coal mining and coal trading companies have looked for new ways to improve their supply chain networks. Developments in the supply chain design and analysis have helped coal mining and coal trading companies expand their businesses, but at the same time, have forced them to consolidate their assets and downsize any underused storage facilities. In the coal mining industry, the problem of consolidation and downsizing becomes much more complicated due to the variety in quality parameters (hence many coal grades) involved, locational zones and different number of market players. Furthermore, for the last decade, the storage allocation and assignment problem has received a great deal of attention within the Logistics and Operation Research (OR) area. Yet, little attention has been given to the modeling of coal supply chains and the issue of strategic supply chain planning of coal-producing and coal-trading companies. Similar to the generic warehouse consolidation problem (WCP), in specific cases of coal-producing and coal-trading companies, storage facilities that are redundant or underutilized can be eliminated without causing a negative impact on customer and service levels. In this context, this paper discusses the background of the problem and proposes a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model mainly intended for storage and distribution network reconfiguration of a coal-producing or trading company. The model, which can be implemented in a high-level mathematical modelling system such as GAMS or AIMMS, captures the essential methodological features of a warehouse restructuring and/or consolidation problem and can be applied in practice.

Waste Management as an Element of the Creation of a Closed Loop of Supply Chains on the Example of Mining and Extractive Industry

“…The publications available in this thematic area comprise the basic components of Osborne, Smith and Mann mining chains [8], production strategies [29], transport [5,13,53]. Allocation of storage area [44], KPI indicators [51]. In turn, in these positions where references are made to pro-environmental aspects [41,55], there are no references to the issues of the closed loop of the supply chain, or these references are treated in a marginal manner [31].…”

Waste Management as an Element of the Creation of a Closed Loop of Supply Chains on the Example of Mining and Extractive Industry

“…This is probably the result among others of limited scientific literature that presents the mining industry from the perspective of supply chains. The publications available in this thematic area comprise the basic components of Osborne, Smith and Mann mining chains [17], production strategies [18], transport [19][20][21], allocation of storage area [22], KPI indicators [23]. In turn, in these positions where references are made to pro-environmental aspects [24], there are no references to the issues of the closed loop of the supply chain, or these references are treated in a marginal manner [25].…”

Toward unraveling multi-objective optimization problems: A hybrid approach for solving a novel facility location problem

“…Constraints (4) make sure that in each period and vertex, one hub can be constructed or transferred to another vertex. Constraints (5) show the number of hubs in each period. Constraints (6) say that neither of the non-hub nodes is adjacent.…”

“…This paper is going to tackle one of the fundamental categories of network designing problems called Facility Location Problem (FLP). This subject plays a decisive role in many research areas, such as structuring postal services [1], controlling air traffic [2], [3], scheduling manufacturing factories [4], supply chain warehouses [5], and even analyzing computer networks [6] [7], [8]. Roughly speaking, an FLP seeks to locate the number of facilities (i.e., hub vertices) that aim to satisfy the demands of clients (the remaining nodes) provided that several constraints hold [9], [10].…”