Biomass Supply Chain Optimization under the Constraint of Transport Unavailability

Biomass is a biological product that is derived from living organisms. It refers more often to plants or products of vegetal origin that are specifically called lignocellulosic biomass. As an energy source, biomass can be used either directly via combustion to generate heat, or indirectly after its conversion to various forms of biofuels. These are beneficial because they produce less greenhouse gas (GHG) than fossil fuels; also because they are made from renewable sources. Research activities concerning the management of biomass supply chain currently focuses on improving the productivity of this biological product and the design of the most efficient conversion process in terms of cost, time and flexibility of the supply chain. More specifically, investigation into the optimal flow of biomass from harvesting to bio-refineries has received a great deal of attention since this directly translates to efficiency savings brought about by the minimization of the total supply chain costs. One of the first studies on biomass supply chain optimization, especially at the tactical level, was conducted by Erikssonand et al. (1989). Their study comprised of one power station and six areas supplying four kinds of biomass products. The study by Prins et al. (2015) also focussed at the tactical level; it provided a new generic model for multi-biomass, multi-period supply chain with the objective of minimizing the total cost of the supply chain. The goal of this work is to find the minimum cost of the biomass supply chain, taking into account. (a) the minimum delivery time of biomass supply chain, and (b) the unavailability of transport vehicles between different nodes (e.g., biomass harvesting areas and factories). We have introduced an index of availability which refers to the number of alternatives to achieve the biomass transportation operation. To best of our knowledge, there is presently no research that simultaneously takes into account these objectives.