Mathematical Models in Agri-food Supply Chains

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In April 10,11 and 20th 2018 Associate Prof. Mareva Alemany Díaz, from Centro de Investigación en Gestión e Ingeniería de Producción (CIGIP) of Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) conducted several teaching sessions about “Mathematical Models in Agri-food Supply Chains” as a part of her secondment at ALSIA (Italy).

The objective of these teaching sessions was to present mathematical models as powerful tools to be used by farmers during their decision-making process at different decisional levels. These decision levels include the strategic level (facility location, network design, technology selection), tactical level (crop selection, harvest planning, labor planing) and operational level (storage, distribution, order management). First, the general structure of mathematical models was described and then, three applications of Mathematical Models to agricultural supply chains were presented to: 1) define the schedule of the grape harvest operations, 2) promise customer order proposals in a fruit supply chain and 3) forecast demand or prices by a software tool based on mathematical models. As a conclusion it can be stated that mathematical models can be applied to wide range of problems in the sector. This is supported by the fact that during last years it is observed an increasing development of mathematical models in agrifood supply chains with special emphasis put on the uncertainty modelling.

The presentation used during the teaching sessions is available for download here

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