Coordinated and synchronized operational level planning of forest-based biomass supply chains

利用森林生物质作为生产生物能源和其他生物产品的可再生来源，有可能促进“生物质的梯级利用”、“循环经济”，从而促进可持续发展。基于森林的生物质是一种多用途资源，可用于生产各种生物产品，与其他一些可再生资源不同，它可以按需储存和使用。在加拿大的一些农村和森林依赖社区，它的可用性有助于当地经济，增加燃料安全，并在用于生产生物能源和生物燃料时减少排放。尽管有潜在的优势，但在利用这一宝贵资源方面仍然存在障碍。其中，物流成本高、供应链复杂，不利于其经济竞争力。据报道，在某些情况下，物流成本占原料成本的50%以上，是利用生物质生产生物能源和生物燃料的主要障碍。因此，设计和规划高效的森林生物质供应链对提高其竞争力至关重要。虽然大量的研究集中在战略和战术规划的优化森林生物质，其业务层面的规划研究很少。此外，考虑供应链中的变化，如生物质供应量和质量的变化，以及在操作级模型中包括社会和环境影响，以前都没有做过。一般而言，在协调森林产品供应链和协调活动方面所作的努力较少。同步和协调森林生物质和森林产品的后勤和供应链活动将进一步改进规划工作。业务层面的规划涉及收集、预处理、储存、运输和分配方面的短期决策。这些决定影响物流和原料成本。因此，本研究的目标是集中于基于森林的生物质的操作（短期）规划，并开发适当的优化模型，其中注意：1）与原木和其他森林产品的活动的同步和协调，2）考虑多个目标（经济，环境和社会），以及3）供应链的变化。该项目的目的是提出替代办法，以提高使用森林生物量的经济、环境和社会效益，否则这些生物量就会被浪费。

Utilization of forest-based biomass, as a renewable source to produce bioenergy and other bioproducts, has the potential to contribute to "cascade use of biomass", "circular economy", and consequently sustainable development. Forest-based biomass is a versatile resource that can be used to produce a variety of bioproducts, and unlike some other renewable sources, it can be stored and used on demand. Its availability in some rural and forest-dependent communities in Canada help the local economy, increase fuel security, and reduce emissions when it is used to produce bioenergy and biofuels. Despite the potential advantages, there are still barriers in utilization of this valuable resource. Among them, its high logistics cost and complex supply chain detriment its economic competitiveness. It is reported that in some cases, logistics cost accounts for more than 50% of the feedstock cost and is the main barrier in using biomass to generate bioenergy and biofuels. Therefore, designing and planning efficient forest-based biomass supply chains are essential to improve its competitiveness. While a large number of previous studies focused on optimization of strategic and tactical planning of forest-based biomass, studies on its operational level planning are few. Furthermore, considering variations in the supply chain such as those in biomass supply amount and quality as well as including social and environmental impacts in operational level models are not done before. In general, less effort has been made to synchronize the supply chain and coordinate activities of forest products. Synchronization and coordination of logistical and supply chain activities for forest-based biomass and forest products would further improve the planning. Operational level planning is related to short-term decisions on collection, preprocessing, storage, transportation and distribution. These decisions affect the logistics and feedstock costs. Hence, the objective of this research is to focus on operational (short term) planning of forest-based biomass and develop suitable optimization models in which attention is paid to: 1) synchronization and coordination of activities with those for logs and other forest products, 2) consideration of multiple objectives (economic, environmental and social), and 3) variations in the supply chain. The attempt in this project is to propose alternatives to improve the economic, environmental and social benefits of using forest biomass, which would be wasted otherwise.