Modeling of an IoT-enabled supply chain for perishable food with two-echelon supply hubs

Abstract

Purpose – The huge demand for fresh goods has stimulated lots of research on the perishable food supply chain. The characteristics of perishable food and the cross-regional transportation have brought many challenges to the operation models of perishable food supply chain. The purpose of this paper is to address these challenges based on the real-time data acquired by the Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Design/methodology/approach – IoT and the modeling of the Supply Hub in Industrial Parks were adopted in the perishable food supply chain. Findings – A conceptual model was established for the IoT-enabled perishable food supply chain with two-echelon supply hubs. The performance of supply chain has improved when implementing the proposed model, as is demonstrated by a case study. Originality/value – By our model, the supply hubs which act as the dominators of the supply chain can respond to the real-time information captured from the operation processes of an IoT-enabled supply chain, thus to provide public warehousing and logistic services.