SimPlan AG participates in European research project for more energy efficiency in the supply chain
e-SAVE-project develops management tools for environmental protection
In light of the recent climate change and increasing production costs, more and more industries commit themselves to a wiser management of energy resources and industrial environmental performance. Especially the production of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) causes high environmental pollution but the industry lacks the necessary management methods and systems to effectively implement energy saving measures.
The e-SAVE project, sponsored by the European Union, aims to develop the information infrastructure, applications and decision support tools to assist operations and supply chain management and design decisions, taking into account environmental KPIs and the dynamic energy profile of products and processes. Furthermore, the project will support efficient information sharing and collaboration among supply chain partners in order to enable an end-to-end information flow, spanning a product’s entire life cycle.
Moreover, the possibility to automatically capture data regarding the dynamic energy profile of processes and products through sensors, automatic identification technologies, etc. will also be investigated. e-SAVE utilizes the energy efficiency and carbon-footprint measures to support both operational and strategic decision making and supply chain design decisions. Thus, e-SAVE will offer supply chain partners a powerful toolset to both monitor energy efficiency and carbon footprint across the supply chain, but also incorporate these measures into the decision making process and influence day-to-day operations (e.g. vehicle routing, replenishment schedules etc.) but also reshape their supply chain design where required (e.g. eliminate a warehouse or change distribution channel).
SimPlan is one of eleven project partners in the e-SAVE consortium. Apart from the Technical University Dortmund, Athens University and Swiss École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Italian food company Barilla S.p.A. as well as METRO Greece are part of e-SAVE. Further partners are BOC Asset Management Gmbh, ECR EUROPE ASBL and the software companies INTRASOFT International S.A., Quantis Sàrl and Intelen Services Ltd.
One important part of the toolset is going to be a supply chain simulation component built by SimPlan, based on the existing toolkit SimChain (PDF). It will enable the user to set up what-if scenarios, e.g. by adding or removing supply chain nodes, by modifying transport options, or by re-allocating products. In addition to typical logistics key performance indicators such as service level, costs for transportation and stock environmental indicators.