主管:中国科学院
主办:中国优选法统筹法与经济数学研究会
   中国科学院科技战略咨询研究院

Chinese Journal of Management Science ›› 2024, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (2): 315-323.doi: 10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2021.2618

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Optimal Location and Capacity of Pre-cooling Facilities Considering the First-Mile Loss of Fresh Agri-products

Zujun Ma1(),Yiran Wang2   

  1. 1.School of Management, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, Hangzhou 310018, China
    2.School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 610031, China
  • Received:2021-12-15 Revised:2022-03-11 Online:2024-02-25 Published:2024-03-06
  • Contact: Zujun Ma E-mail:zjma@zufe.edu.cn

Abstract:

High loss rate has always been a pain point in the circulation of fresh agri-products. As the “First Mile” of cold chains, pre-cooling is the key to affecting the quality of fresh agri-products. In recent years, the construction of pre-cooling facilities in producing areas has been promoted in China. However, due to the difficulty of constructing pre-cooling stations in traditional building forms in fields, centralized pre-cooling is mostly adopted in regions where conditions permit. However, centralized pre-cooling stations are generally far away from the producing area of agri-products. If their locations are not reasonable, the loss rate of fresh agri-products will remain high. Therefore, it is necessary to find the best location scheme of pre-cooling stations considering the “First Mile” loss of fresh agri-products, so as to effectively reduce the loss and logistics costs in the circulation of agri-products. Although little literature has considered the pre-cooling station location problem, only the number and location of pre-cooling stations are considered. However, the type and capacity of pre-cooling stations are not involved. Moreover, different pre-cooling methods for different types of fresh agri-products are not considered, and the “First Mile” loss from producing areas to pre-cooling stations is ignored. Economies of scale in the construction of pre-cooling stations are also not considered.In this paper, the loss of multi-type fresh agri-products after being picked in the logistics process of producing areas→pre-cooling facilities→logistics centers is considered, and corresponding pre-cooling facilities suitable for their pre-cooling needs is built. By considering the economies of scale in the construction and operations of various pre-cooling facilities, a mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to optimize the layout of pre-cooling facilities and determine the number, location, type, and capacity of pre-cooling facilities. A genetic algorithm is proposed to solve the model according to its characteristics. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm are verified by numerical experiments and a case study on the optimal layout of pre-cooling facilities for fresh agri-products in Chengdu. The results show that the first-mile loss of fresh agri-products and the economies of scale in the construction of pre-cooling facilities will significantly affect the location of pre-cooling facilities. In practice, it is necessary to combine the characteristics of fresh agri-products and the technical and economic indicators of constructing pre-cooling facilities to optimize their locations.

Key words: fresh agri-products, pre-cooling facility, location, genetic algorithm

CLC Number: