Cold supply chain logistics: System optimization for real-time rerouting transportation solutions

Transportation of perishable products is critical and imposes a series of challenges to the cold supply chain and logistics operations. The specific challenge to be addressed is the strict monitoring of transportation conditions. This paper provides insights in the logistics decision models associated with the cold supply chain of perishable products. The decision-making is performed in the cloud by temporary virtual machines (VMs) associated with every shipment or series of shipments. The VMs make operational decisions based on evaluating actual transportation conditions and location of shipped products against requirements and initial route and terminal market geographical location. The physical part of the logistics cyber-physical monitoring and control system is represented by integrated RFID-WSN sensor devices traveling with the product and reader checkpoints distributed along the transportation routes. Two types of decisions are considered in the proposed models: stopping transportation and/or rerouting the shipments to a closer location. The implementation of the optimization models for an actual case study, which considers shipments of fresh produce across the continental United States, shows significant savings that could be obtained if producers or third party logistics companies adopt the methodology.