Special Issue "Optimal Decisions in Sustainable Supply Chains Impacted by Health Crisis"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Nidhal Rezg
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Informatics Engineering, Production and Maintenance (LGIPM), Lorraine University, Nancy, France
Interests: manufacturing/remanufacturing; maintenance/production; simulation; discrete event system theory; risk assessment
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Sadok Turki
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Informatics Engineering, Production and Maintenance (LGIPM), Lorraine University, Nancy, France
Interests: sustainable supply chain systems; optimization methods and operations research; production and maintenance planning; risk assessment; assembly/disassembly systems
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Sofiene Dellagi
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Informatics Engineering, Production and Maintenance (LGIPM), Lorraine University, Nancy, France
Interests: maintenance, reliability; production; suuply chain; quality
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Dr. Zied Hajej
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Informatics Engineering, Production and Maintenance (LGIPM), Lorraine University, Nancy, France
Interests: maintenance; reliability; production; suuply chain; quality; operations research
Dr. Med Ali Kammoun
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Laboratory of Informatics Engineering, Production and Maintenance (LGIPM), Lorraine University, Nancy, France
Interests: scheduling; discrete event system theory; production/maintenance

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Due to the serious health crisis (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic), almost all countries in the world have adopted strict containment measures, by confining people to their homes. This has disturbed national and global supply chains. Indeed, almost all supply chain firms have experienced difficulties, such as a brutal increase in the consumption of certain types of products, and a decrease in demand for other products, lack of workforce and of raw materials, and an increase of home delivery orders. Consequently, during this health crisis, many firm leaders have been working hard to find the best solutions for sustainable supply chains, in order to satisfy their customers. Furthermore, after the epidemic’s peak, many countries will begin their exit strategy and ‘normal’ life will resume. This will disturb more and more supply chains, as they must adapt to the health measures imposed by governments. These measures will impact many different sectors of sustainable supply chains, such as manufacturing, remanufacturing, distribution and collection, transportation, the market of disposable or reusable products, etc. Therefore, decisions should be made in order to best manage supply chains in such a situation.

In light of this situation, authors are invited to submit high-quality research papers on the subject of decision making in sustainable supply chains during the health crisis, or after the epidemic’s peak (containment exit). Research related to the keywords below is welcomed.

Prof. Dr. Nidhal Rezg
Dr. Sadok Turki
Dr. Sofiene Dellagi
Dr. Zied Hajej
Dr. Med Ali Kammoun
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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

  • Optimal decisions in sustainable supply chains
  • Health crisis
  • COVID-19
  • Coronavirus pandemic
  • Epidemic peak
  • Health measures
  • Demand of disposable or reusable products
  • Scheduling in sustainable manufacturing
  • Manufacturing/remanufacturing decisions
  • Reverse logistics and closed loop supply chain
  • Production planning in sustainable supply chain
  • Maintenance strategies for systems with high production level
  • Sustainable transport and home delivering
  • Carbon footprint and carbon trading

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Quasi-Optimal Sizing of a Vehicle Fleet Considering Environmental Impact, Maintenance, and Eventual Containment Measures
Sustainability 2021, 13(8), 4384; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13084384 - 14 Apr 2021
Viewed by 456
Abstract
In this paper, N types of vehicles having different environmental impacts and different failure rates are considered to perform a set of missions during a predefined period. The sizing problem of the fleet of vehicles is typically based on the literature for the [...] Read more.
In this paper, N types of vehicles having different environmental impacts and different failure rates are considered to perform a set of missions during a predefined period. The sizing problem of the fleet of vehicles is typically based on the literature for the environmental impact of each type of vehicle. This work intends to develop a model that allows considering not only the extent of recourse to non-polluting vehicles but also the preventive maintenance (PM) policy to be adopted for each of the N types of vehicles. More specifically, the objective of this work consists in determining simultaneously the quasi-optimal number of vehicles of each type to be used, the duration of their use, and their average usage rate as well as the period according to which each type of vehicle should be submitted to preventive maintenance. A mathematical model is developed to express and optimize the expected total cost, which includes the costs related to acquisition, operating, maintenance, and environmental impact in addition to considering the resale value. Then, the situation of using the acquired vehicle fleet in a context of a health crisis with containment measures is considered. The latter make it impossible to perform preventive maintenance actions during the containment period. For such situations, given the accumulated degradation in absence of preventive maintenance, the cost model is modified to generate a new preventive maintenance plan to be applied for each vehicle after the containment exit. Numerical results related to fuel and electric vehicles of two brands (Renault and Nissan) are presented and discussed. Full article
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Article
Reuse of Filtering Facepiece Respirators in the COVID-19 Era
Sustainability 2021, 13(2), 797; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020797 - 15 Jan 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 618
Abstract
The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an immense and unforeseen increase in demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers worldwide. Amongst other products, respirator masks are crucial to protect the users against transmission of the virus. Decontamination and reuse of [...] Read more.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an immense and unforeseen increase in demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers worldwide. Amongst other products, respirator masks are crucial to protect the users against transmission of the virus. Decontamination and reuse of the existing stock could be a solution to the shortage of new respirators. Based upon existing studies, it was found that (I) a solid quality control method is essential to test product reuse, (II) in-depth evaluation of the different parts of the filtering facepiece respirator (FFR) should be considered, and (III) communication of the reuse cycle is essential to take track of the amount of reuse, as this is limited to ensure quality. The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, we identify the impact of decontamination on the different parts of the FFRs and how the quality control should be performed. Two different types of FFRs are analysed within this paper, resulting in the recommendation of combining quantitative respirator mask fit testing with a thorough sensory evaluation of decontaminated FFRs to qualify them for reuse. Secondly, the possibilities of communication of this reuse to the eventual user are mapped through in-depth reasoning. Full article
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