MOSinLine – Modeling, optimization and simulation for innovative, sustainable supply networks

The project MOSinLine is funded by the BMBF from 15 March 2023 to 31 March 2026.

In order to achieve full shelves with low logistics costs and a positive eco-balance in food retailing, uncertainties of daily demand and future sales shifts (e.g., growing online trade) must be integrated as best as possible into forward-looking planning of delivery networks. Network planning faces a dilemma here. High availability of goods increases sales. However, this inevitably leads to increased transportation of goods as well as overstocking, which in turn represents a significant environmental impact, as about one-third of the food produced worldwide is not consumed. Preventing this food waste would reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent.

Optimized delivery networks in food retailing thus play a central role in achieving climate goals, but require end-to-end optimization across temporal planning levels (strategic, tactical, operational) with explicit consideration of uncertainty. In the MOSinLine project, efficient algorithms for modeling, simulation and optimization are developed to enable sustainable supply networks with demand-driven supply planning. Environmental and climate impacts are explicitly addressed by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions and food waste. Demand uncertainty and interactions between planning levels are mapped using innovative robust optimization models and algorithms, and new models and heuristics for delivery frequency planning are developed. The resulting supply network is evaluated by means of a simulation and iteratively re-optimized based on the simulation results. Thus, novel, practically applicable mathematical models are developed, linked to an innovative simulation-based optimization procedure, evaluated in practice using real data, and made usable for industrial applications.

Partners

• Technical University Munich – Chair of Supply and Value Chain Management – Prof. Dr. Alexander Hübner
• Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences – Professorship of Complex Networks – Prof. Dr. Clemens Thielen
• WITRON Logistik + Informatik GmbH

Funded by