Search results

The purpose of this paper is to establish an effective risk assessment approach based on the conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) in the agricultural supply chain.

This study analyzes and assesses the risks of breeding, processing, transportation and warehousing in the agricultural supply chain. The ordered weighted averaging operator is used to sort risk control factors according to their importance and determine the main risk indicators of an enterprise. The CVaR model is utilized to establish the risk loss function, and an improved genetic algorithm is employed to identify the optimal risk control portfolios in the case of the smallest risk loss.

Based on the approach, the optimal combination of risk control to minimize risk losses is determined. Results show that the proportion of capital investment in risk control differs at three confidence levels, and a large amount of money needs to be invested in the production process at the source. Thus, any attempt to control the risks inherent in the agricultural supply chain must begin with the production process at the source.

Supply chain risk management has become increasingly important and significant to the operation and production of enterprises in recent years. The proposed method to assess the risk in the agricultural supply chain can benefit managers in making smart decisions to control total risk.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is used in the fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain, which can be coordinated through a revenue-sharing contract. The purpose of this paper is to make the three-level supply chain coordinate in IoT by considering the influence of FAP on market demand and costs of controlling freshness on the road.

A three-level FAP supply chain that comprises a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer in IoT is regarded as the research object. This study improves the revenue-sharing contract, determines the optimal solution when the supply chain achieves maximum profit in three types of decision-making situations, and develops the profit distribution model based on the improved revenue-sharing contract to coordinate the supply chain.

The improved revenue-sharing contract can coordinate the FAP supply chain that comprises a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer in IoT, as well as benefit all enterprises in the supply chain.

Resource utilization rate can be improved after coordinating the entire supply chain. Moreover, loss in the circulation process is reduced, and the circulation efficiency of FAPs is improved because of the application of IoT. The validity of the model is verified through a case analysis.

This study is different from other research in terms of the combination of supply chain coordination, FAPs, and radio frequency identification application in IoT.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how social networking services (SNSs) affect consumers’ behaviors on the omni-channel supply chain by using a reverse research method.

Initially, a questionnaire was administered to obtain data on the relationship between the perception factors of channels and consumer behavior. Subsequently, a structural equation model was constructed, and consumer behavior were determined in the omni-channel supply chain. Finally, the importance of various factors that affected consumer behavior in the omni-channel supply chain under SNSs was determined.

Conclusions affirm that a positive effect on consumer channel behaviors occurs when buyers obtain information from social network platforms. However, regardless of online, offline, or mobile terminal, shortcomings are indicated in consumers’ lack of feedback on purchased goods and the bias of feedback.

The study explored ways to efficiently apply SNSs in building the omni-channel supply chain. Meanwhile, corresponding suggestions were provided such that companies will know about consumer needs.

This paper studies the optimal decision-making and coordination problem of a dual-channel fresh agricultural product (FAP) supply chain. The purpose is to analyze the impact of information sharing on optimal decisions and propose a coordination mechanism to encourage supply chain members to share information.

The two-echelon dual-channel FAP supply chain includes a manufacturer and a retailer. By using the Stackelberg game theory and the backward induction method, the optimal decisions are obtained under information symmetry and asymmetry and the coordination contract is designed.

The results show that supply chain members should comprehensively evaluate the specific situation of product attributes, coefficient of freshness-keeping cost and network operating costs to make decisions. Asymmetric information can exacerbate the deviation of optimal decisions among supply chain members and information sharing is always beneficial to manufacturers but not to retailers. The improved revenue-sharing and cost-sharing contract is an effective coordination mechanism.

The conclusions can provide theoretical guidance for supply chain managers to deal with information asymmetry and improve the competitiveness of the supply chain.

This paper combines the three characteristics that are most closely related to the reality of supply chains, including horizontal and vertical competition of different channels, the perishable characteristics of FAPs and the uncertainty generated by asymmetric demand information.

This study aims to research the large cross-section tunnel stability evaluation method corrected after considering the thickness-span ratio.

First, taking the Liuyuan Tunnel of Huanggang-Huangmei High-Speed Railway as an example and taking deflection of the third principal stress of the surrounding rock at a vault after tunnel excavation as the criterion, the critical buried depth of the large section tunnel was determined. Then, the strength reduction method was employed to calculate the tunnel safety factor under different rock classes and thickness-span ratios, and mathematical statistics was conducted to identify the relationships of the tunnel safety factor with the thickness-span ratio and the basic quality (BQ) index of the rock for different rock classes. Finally, the influences of thickness-span ratio, groundwater, initial stress of rock and structural attitude factors were considered to obtain the corrected BQ, based on which the stability of a large cross-section tunnel with a depth of more than 100 m during mechanized operation was analyzed. This evaluation method was then applied to Liuyuan Tunnel and Cimushan No. 2 Tunnel of Chongqing Urban Expressway for verification.

This study shows that under different rock classes, the tunnel safety factor is a strict power function of the thickness-span ratio, while a linear function of the BQ to some extent. It is more suitable to use the corrected BQ as a quantitative index to evaluate tunnel stability according to the actual conditions of the site.

The existing industry standards do not consider the influence of buried depth and span in the evaluation of tunnel stability. The stability evaluation method of large section tunnel considering the correction of overburden span ratio proposed in this paper achieves higher accuracy for the stability evaluation of surrounding rock in a full or large-section mechanized excavation of double line high-speed railway tunnels.

Soft grippers have safer and more adaptable human–machine and environment–machine interactions than rigid grippers. However, most soft grippers with single gripping postures have a limited gripping range. Therefore, this paper aims to design a soft gripper with variable gripping posture to enhance the gripping adaptability.

This paper proposes a novel soft gripper consisting of a conversion mechanism and four spring-reinforced soft pneumatic actuators (SSPAs) as soft fingers. By adjusting the conversion mechanism, four gripping postures can be achieved to grip objects of different shapes, sizes and weights. Furthermore, a quasi-static model is established to predict the bending deformation of the finger. Finally, the bending angle of the finger is measured to validate the accuracy of the quasi-static model. The gripping force and gripping adaptability are tested to explore the gripping performance of the gripper.

Through experiments, the results have shown that the quasi-static model can accurately predict the deformation of the finger; the gripper has the most significant gripping force under the parallel posture, and the gripping adaptability of the gripper is highly enhanced by converting the four gripping postures.

By increasing the gripping posture, a novel soft gripper with enhanced gripping adaptability is proposed to enlarge the gripping range of the soft gripper with a single posture. Furthermore, a quasi-static model is established to analyze the deformation of SSPA.

The cluster supply chain is widely used in the professional towns in China, and improves the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises through integrating the supply chain with the industrial cluster. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

This paper studies a cluster supply chain under vendor managed inventory (VMI) system, which includes vendors, third-party logistics (TPL) enterprises and retail enterprises, and aims to study the replenishment decisions and coordination contracts in the supply chain. The economic order quantity model is applied to analyze the influence of marginal transportation cost factor under two replenishment modes – direct delivery and milk-run delivery, in order to find out the optimal replenishment decisions corresponding to different marginal transportation cost factors. And then, the revenue sharing contract is used to identify the change of profits of enterprises in the supply chain before and after the coordination contract.

It is concluded that the marginal transportation cost factor is an important factor influencing the replenishment decision especially in milk-run delivery, and the introduction of the revenue sharing contract can improve the revenue in the supply chain.

This is the first study that explores the relationship between a single transport cost and a single transport batch of cluster supply chain in centralized VMI & TPL system. The conclusions of the study have certain theoretical significance for the decision making and coordination of cluster supply chain.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the risk factors that affect aquatic product quality in the “farming-supermarket docking” condition. This paper investigates how the investment scale can affect earnings and aquatic product quality assurance level. Also, it aims to determine an effective method for increasing aquatic product assurance level, coordinate the supply chain and improve management of the entire supply chain.

The authors construct a coordination model for quality risk control of the aquatic supply chain by simulating the model in a tilapia supply chain using the case study method. They applied Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions to analyze upstream enterprises (breeding base) and downstream enterprises (corresponding supermarket) under the conditions of sufficient or insufficient funds, Further, they consider the relationships among revenue, optimum quality assurance and investment scale at different capital positions; discuss the best cooperation conditions in four cases; and draw conclusions on ways to control quality risk.

The proposed coordination model is found to be effective in controlling aquatic product quality risk. The simulation results show that when the enterprise funds are sufficient, the sales prices, product freshness, quality assurance ability, collaboration and quality test ability have a positive influence on quality assurance level, whereas coefficient and price sensitivity have a negative influence on it. Additionally, it can obtain high-quality assurance levels and earnings in both breeding bases and supermarkets under the condition of adequate investment.

The study built a coordination model combined with the characteristics of the aquatic supply chain by adding the quality penalty mechanism, product freshness parameters and cost function in the “farming-supermarket docking” mode into the traditional principal–agent model. Research results are beneficial to enhancing the quality assurance level of the aquatic supply chain and improving the coordination level of the supply chain.

The governing equations for dynamic transient analysis of a fluid‐saturated two‐phase porous medium model based on the mixture theory are presented. A penalty finite element formulation is derived with the general Galerkin procedure of the finite element method (FEM), and the obtained dynamic system equation can be solved with implicit or explicit time integration method, which is discussed in this paper. Using this method, a porous medium column under impulsive loading is analyzed and the results reveal the phenomena of one‐dimensional wave propagation, which are consistent with analytical solutions. Furthermore, two numerical examples of two‐dimensional problems demonstrate the existence of two body waves, i.e. longitudinal (P‐type) and transverse (S‐type) waves in porous media, and the Rayleigh wave in the vicinity of the surface of porous media.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is one of the efficient ways to solve the problems on information sharing in the supply chain of agricultural products. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this paper, a scheme of information sharing in the supply chain of agricultural products is developed and the information of agricultural products is designed and described with Physical Markup Language.

In addition, the EPC Information Services (EPCIS) system of agricultural products is analyzed and designed, and the design of tracking and tracing of the agricultural supply chain based on the IoT is proposed. Meanwhile, EPCDS registration is discussed, and two methods of information inquiry are proposed, especially the processes of inquiries for the static and dynamic information based on Object Name Service are emphasized.

Once a food safety incident occurs, the model can be used for tracking, tracing, and monitoring so as to deal with related products and strengthen the quality and safety management of agricultural products.