Special Issue "Sustainable Global Supply Chain Management: From an International Perspective"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Istinye University, Istanbul 34010, Turkey
Interests: waste management; supply chain management; transportation/routing problems; solution algorithms; industrial engineering; operations research; fuzzy programming; robust optimization
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Alireza Goli
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd 8915818411, Iran
Interests: supply chain management; portfolio optimization; robust optimization; artificial intelligence; meta-heuristic algorithms
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Hêriş Golpîra
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran
Interests: operations research and its applications in energy; supply chain; and project management
Prof. Dr. Ernesto D.R. Santibanez-Gonzalez
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Industrial Engineering, CES4.0 Initiative, University of Talca, Curicó, Chile
Interests: sustainability; climate change; operations management and research; supply chain; disruptive technology; supply chain 4.0; supply chain analytics
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last decade, sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has become very pronounced topic and has received increasing attention from different communities. The implementation of SSCM is in line with the role of organizational factors in the adoption of economic, environmental, and social innovations. On the other hand, with the increasing globalization of markets and company operations, the relationships between the various agents in supply chains have become more important with suppliers and are crucial for the successful development of business. In fact, the growing interest in global supply chain management (GSC) has been strongly stimulated by the potential competitive advantages of a global market. Today, GSC forms a key pillar of the business strategy of companies that want to operate successfully in the foreign market. The academic and business community has a growing interest in studying how GSC and SSCM approaches can help improve the performance of companies that act or want to current in global markets. For different reasons, today, the adoption of sustainable practices in the management of companies is a reality, and this requirement is increasingly becoming a priority when it comes to managing global supply chains. Many retail and manufacturing companies operating on a global scale have already started to modernize their supply chain activities by incorporating Industry 4.0 technologies, such as Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and big data. These technologies will play a key role in the future of supply chain management.

Despite a variety of research studies in this field, the critical factors affecting the provision of SSCM in a global environment, which is now called “sustainable global supply chain (SGSC)”, are still in an embryonic stage. Therefore, there is need for new insight and research into the field that will allow practitioners, decision-makers, and policy-makers to improve decision-making in global and sustainable supply chains. Authors are cordially invited to submit high-quality original research papers, review articles, quantitative and empirical studies, and case studies (for teaching and training) to the Special Issue of Sustainability up until 31 December 2021. Topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Sustainable development of GSCs;
  • Collaborative approaches to sustainability within GSCs;
  • Uncertainty and disruption control in SGSCs;
  • Application of operational research (OR) to design SGSCs;
  • Application of Internet of Things (IoT) in SGSCs;
  • Application of Machine Learning (ML) tools in SGSCs;
  • Application of data analytics in SGSCs;
  • Enhancement of SGSCs during pandemics;
  • Case studies in the field of SGSCs.

We look forward to receive your submissions.

References

  • Golpîra, H., Khan, S. A. R., & Safaeipour, S. (2021). A Review of Logistics Internet-of-Things: Current Trends and Scope for Future Research. Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 100194.
  • Tirkolaee, E. B., Abbasian, P., & Weber, G. W. (2021). Sustainable fuzzy multi-trip location-routing problem for medical waste management during the COVID-19 outbreak. Science of The Total Environment, 143607.
  • Pahlevan, S. M., Hosseini, S. M. S., & Goli, A. (2021). Sustainable supply chain network design using products’ life cycle in the aluminum industry. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 1-25.
  • Alinaghian, M., Tirkolaee, E. B., Dezaki, Z. K., Hejazi, S. R., & Ding, W. (2021). An augmented Tabu search algorithm for the green inventory-routing problem with time windows. Swarm and Evolutionary Computation, 60, 100802.
  • Valderrama, C. V., Santibanez-González, E., Pimentel, B., Candia-Vejar, A., & Canales-Bustos, L. (2020). Designing an environmental supply chain network in the mining industry to reduce carbon emissions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 254, 119688.
  • Goli, A., Zare, H. K., Tavakkoli‐Moghaddam, R., & Sadegheih, A. (2020). Multiobjective fuzzy mathematical model for a financially constrained closed‐loop supply chain with labor employment. Computational Intelligence, 36(1), 4-34.
  • Khan, S. A. R., Yu, Z., Golpîra, H., Sharif, A., & Mardani, A. (2020). A state-of-the-art review and meta-analysis on sustainable supply chain management: Future research directions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 123357.
  • Tirkolaee, E. B., Mardani, A., Dashtian, Z., Soltani, M., & Weber, G. W. (2020). A novel hybrid method using fuzzy decision making and multi-objective programming for sustainable-reliable supplier selection in two-echelon supply chain design. Journal of Cleaner Production, 250, 119517.
  • Golpîra, H. (2020). Optimal integration of the facility location problem into the multi-project multi-supplier multi-resource Construction Supply Chain network design under the vendor managed inventory strategy. Expert systems with applications, 139, 112841.
  • Tirkolaee, E. B., Goli, A., Faridnia, A., Soltani, M., & Weber, G. W. (2020). Multi-objective optimization for the reliable pollution-routing problem with cross-dock selection using Pareto-based algorithms. Journal of Cleaner Production, 276, 122927.
  • Mardani, A., Kannan, D., Hooker, R. E., Ozkul, S., Alrasheedi, M., & Tirkolaee, E. B. (2020). Evaluation of green and sustainable supply chain management using structural equation modelling: A systematic review of the state of the art literature and recommendations for future research. Journal of cleaner production, 249, 119383.

Dr. Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee
Dr. Hêriş Golpîra
Dr. Alireza Goli
Prof. Ernesto D.R. Santibanez-Gonzalez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • sustainable development
  • global supply chain
  • sustainable supply chain
  • uncertainty
  • disruption
  • supply chain 4.0
  • Internet of Things
  • Machine Learning

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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Article
Multi-Objective Optimization for Healthcare Waste Management Network Design with Sustainability Perspective
Sustainability 2021, 13(15), 8279; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158279 - 24 Jul 2021
Viewed by 519
Abstract
Healthcare Waste Management (HWM) is considered as one of the important urban decision-making problems due to its potential environmental, economic, and social risks and damages. The network of the HWM system involves important decisions such as facility locating, inventory management, and transportation management. [...] Read more.
Healthcare Waste Management (HWM) is considered as one of the important urban decision-making problems due to its potential environmental, economic, and social risks and damages. The network of the HWM system involves important decisions such as facility locating, inventory management, and transportation management. Moreover, with growing concerns towards sustainable development objectives, HWM systems should address its environmental and social aspects as well as its economic and technical characteristics. In this regard, this paper formulates a novel multi-objective optimization model to empower companies in making optimized decisions considering the economic, environmental, and social aspects. Within the proposed model, the first objective function aims to minimize the transportation costs, processing costs, and establishment costs. The second objective function aims to minimize environmental risks and emissions related to the transportation of waste between facilities. The third objective function aims to maximize job creation opportunities. Formulating these three functions, an Improved Multi-Choice Goal Programing (IMCGP) approach is proposed to solve the multi-objective optimization model, which is then compared with the Goal Attainment Method (GAM). Finally, to show the applicability and feasibility of the proposed model, an illustrative example of healthcare waste management is analyzed, and the results are discussed. Full article
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Article
Closed-Loop Supply Chain Design and Pricing in Competitive Conditions by Considering the Variable Value of Return Products Using the Whale Optimization Algorithm
Sustainability 2021, 13(12), 6663; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126663 - 11 Jun 2021
Viewed by 605
Abstract
In today’s competitive environment, organizations, in addition to trying to improve their production conditions, have a special focus on their supply chain components. Cooperation between supply chain members always reduces unforeseen costs and speeds up the response to customer demand. In the new [...] Read more.
In today’s competitive environment, organizations, in addition to trying to improve their production conditions, have a special focus on their supply chain components. Cooperation between supply chain members always reduces unforeseen costs and speeds up the response to customer demand. In the new situation, according to the category of return products and their reprocessing, supply chains have found a closed-loop structure. In this research, the aim was to design a closed-loop supply chain in competitive conditions. For this purpose, the key decisions of this chain included locating retail centers, adjusting the inventory of chain members, and selling prices of final products, optimally determined. For this purpose, a nonlinear integer mathematical model is presented. One of the most important innovations of this research was considering the variable value for return products. Then, in order to solve the proposed model, a whale optimization algorithm was developed. Numerical results from the sample examples showed that the whale algorithm had a very good performance in terms of response quality and speed-of-action in finding the optimal solution to this problem. Full article
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Article
Sustainable Closed-Loop Mask Supply Chain Network Design Using Mathematical Modeling and a Fuzzy Multi-Objective Approach
Sustainability 2021, 13(10), 5353; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13105353 - 11 May 2021
Viewed by 524
Abstract
The outbreak of the deadly coronavirus, which is increasing the number of victims every day, has created many changes in today’s world. The use of various masks is the most important social tool against this virus. Given the importance of rapid and quality [...] Read more.
The outbreak of the deadly coronavirus, which is increasing the number of victims every day, has created many changes in today’s world. The use of various masks is the most important social tool against this virus. Given the importance of rapid and quality supply of masks in the current situation, it is necessary to study supply chain in particular. In this research, the design of a closed chain supply chain network for different types of masks is assessed. The studied supply chain includes suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers in the forward flow and collection centers, separate centers, recycling centers, and disposal centers in the backward flow. In this regard, a multi-objective mathematical model with the objectives of increasing the total profit and reducing the total environmental impact, and maximizing social responsibility is presented. The optimization of this mathematical model has been done using a fuzzy optimization approach in GAMS software. The results of this study show that maximizing the total profit and minimizing the environmental effects and maximizing social responsibility are in contrast to each other. In addition, the sensitivity analysis indicated that the customers’ demand can affect all aspects of the sustainable supply chain simultaneously. Full article
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Systematic Review
Application of Industry 4.0 in the Procurement Processes of Supply Chains: A Systematic Literature Review
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7520; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147520 - 06 Jul 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 776
Abstract
The fourth industrial revolution has significantly changed the traditional way of managing supply chains. The applications of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in different processes of supply chains have assisted companies to improve [...] Read more.
The fourth industrial revolution has significantly changed the traditional way of managing supply chains. The applications of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in different processes of supply chains have assisted companies to improve their performance. Procurement can be considered a critical process in supply chain management since it can provide novel opportunities for supply chains to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. However, I4.0 applications can be costly and may not be reasonably affordable. Therefore, the benefits of implementing these technologies should be clarified for procurement managers before investing in the digitalization of the procurement process. Despite the importance of this issue, few papers have attempted to address the effects of I4.0 technologies and smart systems in procurement. To fill this gap, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) on the applications of I4.0 technologies in procurement has been used in this study. By reviewing 70 papers through appropriate keywords, a conceptual framework is developed to classify different value propositions provided by the different applications of I4.0 technologies in procurement processes. Results reveal nine value propositions that can provide a better understanding for the procurement department to analyze the benefits of implementing the related I4.0 technologies in different activities. Finally, findings and future study opportunities are concluded. Full article
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