4 Presentations

• 
  10:30 AM - 10:55 AM

  Fiber procurement planning under sourcing uncertainties

  • Ali Rahimi, presenter, Université Laval
  • Mikael Rönnqvist, Université Laval
  • Luc Lebel, Université Laval
  • Jean-François Audy, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

  Fiber procurement in the pulp and paper companies is challenging due to various uncertainties affecting supply operations. These uncertainties may cause, for instance, delayed deliveries or changed order levels on supply. Such lack of supply may lead to changed production plan or expensive purchases to compensate the shortage. When external suppliers are involved, proper selection of sourcing strategy under these circumstances can counteract the deviations in the volume of deliveries as a sourcing uncertainty. In addition, companies need to manage level of inventory in response to risk of shortage and to avoid excessive inventory cost. We propose a new integer programming model, including purchasing from external suppliers through a set of available sourcing contracts and their transportation to woodyards and pulpmill, with consideration of uncertainty in quantity of deliveries. The objective of this model is to minimize the total procurement cost and evaluate the optimal plan by simulating in presence of risk. We apply three different strategies for the inventory control as well and compare their efficiency.

• 
  10:55 AM - 11:20 AM

  Strategic evaluation of forest residues for biorefinery supply chain

  • Sattar Ezzati, presenter, Postdoctoral
  • Mikael Rönnqvist, Université Laval
  • Luc Lebel, Université Laval
  • Jean-François Audy, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
  • Riadh Azouzi, Université Laval

  Low-value logging residue has a potential to be considered as a valuable resource to produce bio-energy. The current research aims to analyze and propose innovative logistics solutions for the delivery of a large volume of biomass to a new biorefinery located in the territory of La Tuque (Québec, Canada). The fact is that the necessary biomass volumes are very large. However, their removal should not disturb existing forest industries. Finally, the consolidation of the wood fiber flows and the sharing of the available resources (e.g., equipment and transfer terminal) need to be optimized. To achieve this purpose, we developed a timber harvest optimization model (strategic model) to evaluate the different biomass scenarios that can be made available to satisfy demand of the biorefinery. The results of the strategic model provide availability of biomass 25% to 30% larger than those initially confirmed. This is a significant potential that can help the decision makers to design a cost-effective supply chain network for the implementation of a commercial biorefinery in the La Tuque region, Québec.

• 
  11:20 AM - 11:45 AM

  Preliminary study on autonomous vehicle fleet size for carsharing under demand uncertainty

  • Behnam Izadi-Najafabadi, presenter, Mr.
  • Anjali Awasthi, Concordia University

  We model the carsharing fleet sizing problem for autonomous vehicles as a Markov decision problem. A sequence of stochastic shortest path Problems is solved and the revenue from satisfying new demands is the immediate reward. A discrete event simulation is presented to evaluate MDP solution in different scenarios.

• 
  11:45 AM - 12:10 PM

  Benchmarking port sustainability performance using Data Envelopment Analysis

  • Akolade Adegoke, presenter, Concordia University
  • Anjali Awasthi, Concordia University

  Sustainable development agendas are challenging the world and ports in ways to become more efficient while meeting economic, social and environmental objectives. In comparison to Europe and America, there is limited synthesis about Canadian green ports practices. This research aims to benchmark Canadian sustainability ports performance to identify relevant improvement using Data Envelopment Analysis