A demand scenario based fuelwood supply chain: A conceptual model

Fuelwood is one of the main fuels for heating in many countries. As the price of fuelwood is relative low, comparing to oil or gas, demand for fuelwood rises over the years. A supply chain is considered by different nodes that are essential for some operations concerning transportation and production. Due to the sensitive nature of the forest, which is the “production plant” in the examined supply chain, certain restrictions concerning the production and distribution of fuelwood should be taken into account. A more environment oriented production model should be developed taking into consideration the sustainable management of the forests. For this purpose a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is considered in modeling uncertainty for fuelwood demand. Moreover, the minimization of the overall operations cost is examined under different fuelwood demand representations using Lagrangean relaxation algorithm.