Design of Supply Chain Transportation Pooling Strategy for Reducing CO₂ Emissions Using a Simulation-Based Methodology: A Case Study

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The subject of the paper is in line with the aims and scope of the Journal. The topic is very interesting and the approach seems original. However, this originality is not pointed out well enough. There is no clear scientific contribution in relation to some previous studies. The size of the case study model is also questionable. I propose the major revision of the article according to the following comments.

1. The authors should point out the main scientific contribution of the article in the abstract, introduction and conclusion.
2. The authors should point out the research gap, as a result of a literature review, which their article is trying to fill.
3. The authors should highlight the main conclusions of the article in the introduction.
4. The authors defined some strategy „Hub and multi-drop“. Using the same logic, why didn't they define the strategies „Multi-pick and Hub“ and „Multi-pick, Hub and multi-drop“? They seem as reasonable as the one already defined.
5. Are there any limitations of the model? It seems that the model would be too complicated in case of dealing with tens of suppliers and hundreds of customers and that it would require a lot of time to provide a solution. This raises the question of practicality of the proposed model. I understand that this is just a demonstration and that the hypothesis are confirmed (these strategies indeed reduce the CO2 emission), but how relevant is this model if it took into account only two suppliers and three customers. The size of the problem seems questionable for drawing any general conclusion.
6. Are the input data used for the simulation real? Are the companies and the customers real? If yes, the authors should point that out. If not, this again raises question whether the results can be used for drawing any significant conclusion.
7. The authors should take the speed of the vehicles as some probability distribution function, and not as the single values. The same applies for the loading capacity. These inputs are taken too deterministic.
8. The paper lacks the proper discussion of results. The authors did not discuss and interpret the results in perspective of previous studies, nor did they highlight the implications (theoretical and practical) and limitations of the study (proposed model).
9. The future research directions are rather weak. There should be at least 3-5 solid future research directions which would be interesting to the majority of the journal readership.
10. There are some grammar and spelling errors. English writing should be improved.
11. There are certain technical errors:

• The abstract exceeds the limited number of words, as indicated in the Instructions for Authors.
• The authors stated that „All the distances between the components of supply chain are defined in kilometers in Table 1C.“, but they are actually presented in Table 4. There is no Table 1C.
• The authors did not explain all abbreviations at their first mention in the paper (e.g. GVWR, ADEME etc.). According to the Instructions for Authors, abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table.
• The tables with results of the simulation should rather be put in the paper as an attachment, than as supplementary files.

Author Response

Manuscript ID:  sustainability-1597793

Title: Design of Supply Chain Transportation Pooling Strategy for Reducing CO2 emissions Using Discrete-Event Simulation

Authors:  Abdessalem Jerbi, Haifa Jribi, Awad M. Aljuaid, Wafik Hachicha, Faouzi Masmoudi

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers, whose insightful comments and constructive suggestions helped us to significantly improve the quality of this paper. Every change in the text is colored in red

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The structure of section 1 should be revised. This section should be divided into two sections, including an introduction and a literature review. In addition, section 1.3 should be moved to the end of the introduction. In the introduction, the study's research aim, objectives, and contributions should be highlighted.

Many studies have been missed in the literature review!!

The presentation of figure 1 is very unclear. Please revise this figure and, in section 2.1, briefly explain the flow of figure 1.

Section 2.4 is unclear. Please review the literature for the relevant papers. There are many studies in the literature that explored the Co2 emissions in the supply chain and presented some factors for estimating emissions.

Author Response

Manuscript ID:  sustainability-1597793

Title: Design of Supply Chain Transportation Pooling Strategy for Reducing CO2 emissions Using Discrete-Event Simulation

Authors:  Abdessalem Jerbi, Haifa Jribi, Awad M. Aljuaid, Wafik Hachicha, Faouzi Masmoudi

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers, whose insightful comments and constructive suggestions helped us to significantly improve the quality of this paper. Every change in the text is colored in red.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have responded to all of the comments given in the previous review round. Although they didn’t make significant changes regarding some of the comments, they have provided reasonable explanations and left the upgrades indicated in these comments for some future research. I suggest the acceptance of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed all comments.