Bulk wheat transportation and storage problem of public distribution system

Abstract

This research investigates the multi-period multi-modal bulk wheat transportation and storage problem in a two-stage supply chain network of Public Distribution System (PDS). The bulk transportation and storage can significantly curtail the transit and storage losses of food grains, which leads to substantial cost savings. A mixed integer non-linear programming model (MINLP) is developed after studying the Indian wheat supply chain scenario, where the objective is to minimize the transportation, storage and operational cost of the food grain incurred for efficient transfer of wheat from producing states to consuming states. The cost minimization of Indian food grain supply chain is a very complex and challenging problem because of the involvement of the many entities and their constraints such as seasonal procurement, limited scientific storages, varying demand, mode of transportation and vehicle capacity constraints. To address this complex and challenging problem of food grain supply chain, we have proposed the novel variant of Chemical Reaction Optimization (CRO) algorithm which combines the features of CRO and Tabu search (TS) and named it as a hybrid CROTS algorithm (Chemical reaction optimization combined with Tabu Search). The numerous problems with different sizes are solved using the proposed algorithm and obtained results have been compared with CRO. The comparative study reveals that the proposed CROTS algorithm offers a better solution in less computational time than CRO algorithm and the dominance of CROTS algorithm over the CRO algorithm is demonstrated through statistical analysis.

Modelling of sustainable food grain supply chain distribution system: a bi-objective approach

“…This study is related to the food grain supply chain of Public Distribution System (PDS) in India as shown in Figure 1. Under the PDS, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) distributes the subsidized food grains to the weaker and vulnerable section of the society (CAG, 2013;Mogale et al 2017). Procurement from farmers, storage, transportation and distribution to final consumers through Fair Price Shops (FPS) are the major activities of FCI (Maiyar et al 2015).…”

“…Due to the mismatch between the supply and demand of particular states, food grain has to be transferred from producing (surplus) states to consuming (deficit) states (Maiyar and Thakkar 2017;Mogale et al 2017;Mahapatra and Mahanty 2018;Balani et al 2013). The major wheat producing and consuming states in India are situated in a large geographically dispersed area which results in more fuel consumption for food grain transportation (Reddy et al 2017;Anoop et al 2018, High level committee report (HLC) 2015).…”

Analytical and economic methodology for storage of large heavyweight equipment in industrial processes

“…where C saturaci on Y ð Þ denotes the cost associated for a given inventory volume. A similar approach can be used for other concepts of costs with random or dependent character, say inventory volume or others (Mogale, Kumar, Garc ıa M arquez, & Tiwari, 2017).…”

A mathematical model and solution methods for rail freight transportation planning in an Indian food grain supply chain

“…A similar contextual problem for bulk transportation of wheat in PDS is addressed by Mogale et al [7]. A mixed integer non-linear programming model is formulated to minimize the transportation, storage and operational costs.…”

“…Recently, considerable research attention has been received for the transportation and distribution problem of FCI [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Still, there exists further scope for improvements in the current system.…”