Focused on food industrial districts, this paper proposes an integrated approach to increase sustainability and efficiency of logistics activities. The approach is conceived to design an integrated food district, starting from a set of independent companies, and to quantify the economic savings that could be gained from the pooled management of logistics and transportation activities. Moreover, some environmental aspects are considered in the framework, as complementary features that could justify the sustainability of the new scenario. The approach was verified through a real-case application targeting companies operating in the Italian district of tomato. Results of the application show that the pooled management of packaging procurement, warehousing and transportation activities could generate significant improvements in the district sustainability, in terms of both efficiency and resources used. Due to the lack of quantitative models for the optimisation of industrial districts, the approach developed can represent a useful addition to the literature.

Improving logistics efficiency of industrial districts: a framework and exploratory study in the food sector / Bottani, Eleonora; Rizzi, Antonio; Vignali, Giuseppe. - In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LOGISTICS. - ISSN 1367-5567. - 18:3(2015), pp. 402-423. [10.1080/13675567.2014.945401]

Improving logistics efficiency of industrial districts: a framework and exploratory study in the food sector

BOTTANI, Eleonora;RIZZI, Antonio;VIGNALI, Giuseppe
2015-01-01

Abstract

Focused on food industrial districts, this paper proposes an integrated approach to increase sustainability and efficiency of logistics activities. The approach is conceived to design an integrated food district, starting from a set of independent companies, and to quantify the economic savings that could be gained from the pooled management of logistics and transportation activities. Moreover, some environmental aspects are considered in the framework, as complementary features that could justify the sustainability of the new scenario. The approach was verified through a real-case application targeting companies operating in the Italian district of tomato. Results of the application show that the pooled management of packaging procurement, warehousing and transportation activities could generate significant improvements in the district sustainability, in terms of both efficiency and resources used. Due to the lack of quantitative models for the optimisation of industrial districts, the approach developed can represent a useful addition to the literature.
2015
Improving logistics efficiency of industrial districts: a framework and exploratory study in the food sector / Bottani, Eleonora; Rizzi, Antonio; Vignali, Giuseppe. - In: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LOGISTICS. - ISSN 1367-5567. - 18:3(2015), pp. 402-423. [10.1080/13675567.2014.945401]
File in questo prodotto:
Non ci sono file associati a questo prodotto.

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11381/2746701
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 24
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 18
social impact