Optimal establishment of processing unit and partner selection problem of perishable product supply chain: apple case study of India

Decentralized supply chain operation in India adds to inefficiency in management and control difficulties for perishable product supply chain (PPSC). One of the important categories of factors that underly the problem in supply chain is the establishment of processing units that results in end – product distribution. This paper presents an optimal establishment of processing unit around production area for apple supply chain as a case study of India. This study proposed amalgamation of mixed integer linear programming (MILP) and colored petri nets (CPN) to model the PPSC. The mathematical model was set up in regard with capacity of processing unit and transportation cost with continuation in partner selection using MILP approach. The simulation model directs the maximization of system performance by running in CPN environment. The values of the results are subjected to transportation cost and production area with estimate of 25% loss during post harvesting such as transportation and environmental variation. The results corresponding to the case study provided an optimal establishment of processing units. Further , the specific partner associated with the facility and transportation cost. Decision-makers can identify the set of partners from the set of facilities dependent upon the transportation cost for further supply of product using a threshold values. Thereby, the model can be used as a decision-making system for processing companies to result in efficient PPSC management. The developed model was tested and validated on case study to demonstrate our approach’s applicability.