Plant Location Selection for Food Production

Read this article. The authors propose a location selection procedure by simulating daily production volume and supply chain failures of raw materials for producing kimchi. Given the identified failures what must service-based industries consider in location selection?

Abstract

A production capacity analysis considering market demand and raw materials is very important to design a new plant. However, in the food processing industry, the supply uncertainty of raw materials is very high, depending on the production site and the harvest season, and further, it is not straightforward to analyze too complex food production systems by using an analytical optimization model. For these reasons, this study presents a simulation-based decision support model to select the right location for a new food processing plant. We first define three supply vulnerability factors from the standpoint of regional as well as seasonal instability and present an assessment method for supply vulnerability based on fuzzy quantification. The evaluated vulnerability scores are then converted into raw material supply variations for food production simulation to predict the quarterly production volume of a new food processing plant. The proposed selection procedure is illustrated using a case study of semiprocessed kimchi production. The best plant location is proposed where we can reduce and mitigate risks when supplying raw material, thereby producing a target production volume steadily.

Source: Jin Woo Park, Ha Young Oh, Duck Young Kim, and Yong Ju Cho, https://www.hindawi.com/journals/mpe/2018/7494398/#copyright
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.