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This paper aims to understand the implementation of a circular economic business where animal manure is used to produce biogas and alternative fertilizer in a regional network of manure suppliers and biogas producers and to reveal the impacts of five variables (manure quantity, transportation distance, manure dry content, manure price and manure discharge price) on the economic sustainability of manure-based biogas supply chains.

An enterprise input-output approach is used to model physical and monetary flows of the manure-based biogas supply chain. Computational experiments are performed on all variables to identify under which conditions the cooperation is beneficial for all actors.

The cooperation is profitable for a large-scale farm (>20,000 t/year) if biogas producer (b) pays farmer (f) to receive its manure (5 €/t) or if f sells manure for free and manure disposal costs are >10 €/t. Cooperation is always profitable for b if f pays b to supply its manure (5€/t). If b receives manure for free, benefits are always positive if b is a medium-large-scale plant (>20,000 t/year). For a small-scale plant, benefits are positive if manure dry content (MDC) is ≥12 per cent and transportation distance is ≤10 km.

The paper adds value to the biogas production research, as it makes holistic analysis of five variables which might change under different policy and geographical conditions. The investors in biogas production, suppliers and transportation companies can find correspondence to empirical findings for their own site-specific cases.

Cross-docking is a supply chain distribution and logistics strategy for which less-than-truckload shipments are consolidated into full-truckload shipments. Goods are stored up to a maximum of 24 hours in a cross-docking terminal. In this chapter, we build on the literature review by Ladier and Alpan (2016), who reviewed cross-docking research and conducted interviews with cross-docking managers to find research gaps and provide recommendations for future research. We conduct a systematic literature review, following the framework by Ladier and Alpan (2016), on cross-docking literature from 2015 up to 2020. We focus on papers that consider the intersection of research and industry, e.g., case studies or studies presenting real-world data. We investigate whether the research has changed according to the recommendations of Ladier and Alpan (2016). Additionally, we examine the adoption of Industry 4.0 practices in cross-docking research, e.g., related to features of the physical internet, the Internet of Things and cyber-physical systems in cross-docking methodologies or case studies. We conclude that only small adaptations have been done based on the recommendations of Ladier and Alpan (2016), but we see growing attention for Industry 4.0 concepts in cross-docking, especially for physical internet hubs.