News
PhD defense of Willem Antoon Rijpkema
Willem Antoon Rijpkema will defend his dissertation titled 'Effective use of product quality information in food supply chain logistics'.
The defense will take place on Friday 13 June at 11.00h at the Aula of Wageningen University.
Willem Antoon Rijpkema is a PhD student in the Operations Research and Logistics Group supervised by Prof.dr.ir. J.G.A.J. van der Vorst, Dr. E.M.T. Hendrix and Dr. R. Rossi.
Abstract
Effective use of product quality information in food supply chain logistics
Willem A. Rijpkema
Thesis defence: June 13th 2014
Recent technological developments have created the possibility to gather, process and communicate more information on the actual status of products and processes in the supply chain to support decision making. This thesis investigates how the effectiveness of logistics decision making in food supply chains can be improved using advanced product quality information. In four case studies on meat, fruit and vegetables simulation models were developed, in close cooperation with industrial partners, to quantify the added value of using such information in product sourcing and process design decisions. Findings demonstrate that decision makers can considerably improve logistics performances and reduce food waste by using detailed product quality information and predicting changes in product quality.