Global Distribution of Food Products

Question 2

The production, ingestion and distribution of nutrient merchandises globally has been an issue with great importance. Though adequate nutrient is produced worldwide to feed all the people in the universe, about 1 billion people suffer from chronic hungriness in the present universe. One major important factor for this issue is considered to be hapless nutrient distribution. It is chiefly considered that nutrient distribution is fundamentally organizing the connexion between nutrient manufacturers and providers with consumers ; but it is besides every bit of import to place the allotment of nutrient globally. Some of the challenges with nutrient distribution is to place how the nutrient should be distributed globally, who has the authorization to specify the distribution and what schemes and methods to be used for distribution. The traditional method of nutrient distribution is straight selling nutrient and nutrient merchandises straight to the consumers. However, due to assorted inefficiencies, most frequently nutrient merchandises are transported to a cardinal location from where the nutrient is so distributed to assorted other small towns and metropoliss.

As mentioned earlier, assorted factors affect the execution of a robust nutrient distribution system. The deficiency of or inability for the consumers to hold entree to markets or besides the inability of consumers to afford the cost of nutrient is considered as another major factor for improper nutrient distribution. The deficiency of markets, unequal manner of transit handiness and the inability to afford the cost of nutrient production and ingestion are other primary factors. In the current nutrient distribution system, the figure of markets and the ability to entree these markets are limited. About 16 % of the rural population of the states do non hold the convenience to entree markets, doing the husbandmans to sell their harvest. In fact merely 40 % of all the harvest is marketed and one tierce of husbandmans merely sell their harvest to the markets. Transportation has a immense impact in nutrient distribution system in developing states. Access to high quality route or railroads are limited and this creates hold and inefficiency in transporting goods to the cardinal market. Some of the transit paths are expensive and requires changeless care. Certain parts in rural Africa, South Asia and South East Asia have ill constructed and maintained roads, which sometimes creates a barrier to entree certain rural small towns and towns, making hold in transit of goods to those parts. Besides the type of transit varies from part to part. Therefore it is really of import to come up with solutions by critically analyzing the geographics of the part, their handiness to resources and the understanding the local degree of the part.

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Another major drawback is that nutrient merchandises are spoilables and their ingestion clip is limited ; which leads to a batch of nutrient merchandises being wasted globally. A batch of waste besides occurs during post-harvest and during transit. Food merchandises are affected by bacteriums, Fungis and insects, rendering the nutrient uneatable and contaminated for usage doing about 25-50 % of nutrient merchandises being wasted. When a part of nutrient merchandises gets wasted, it creates deficit, which straight impacts the monetary values of the nutrient merchandise. Though monetary value addition affects the consumers, there is no alteration in the monetary value for the husbandmans when they sell their harvest. This instability affects the income of the manufacturers increasing the opportunities of poorness and hungriness rates. The effectual manner to cover with this job is to decently hive away and pull off the nutrient produced. Proper storage methods will increase the life of nutrient merchandises ingestion period. The economic instability, where the consumers have to pay higher cost for the nutrient and husbandmans non acquiring a rise in their income, makes it unaffordable for the people to purchase nutrient in the markets. Many a times, husbandmans are non even able to pay off their investings.

We have mentioned the assorted grounds for hapless nutrient distribution system. Introducing an Industrial and Systems Engineering methods and position can assist clearly analyse the assorted root causes and can assist in implementing a robust nutrient supply concatenation system pull offing a proper nutrient distribution logistics. By implementing a Systems Engineering attack, it would assist to develop an efficient logistic system, where “markets would get full reactivity, high quality merchandises and high dependability of supply in little clip Windowss at the lowest cost.” ( Vlajic, 2011 ) . It would extinguish non-value adding work and inculcate thin thought into its attack. The attack towards developing a nutrient supply concatenation is chiefly focused around merchandise quality and the demand for environmental sustainability. The quality of nutrient within the web should be controlled and guaranteed in order to keep the ironss public presentation. Product quality besides involves properties like safety and unity of the nutrient. In an article by Tromp and Van der Vorst, they discuss “in the context of nutrient supply chains the sustainability treatment focuses on the decrease of merchandise waste, i.e. merchandises that have to be thrown off because the quality is non suited any more, figure of stat mis a merchandise has travelled before it reaches the consumers’ home base ( so called ‘food miles’ ) , and all nursery gas emanations related to the concern processes in the supply concatenation web ( so called ‘carbon footprint’ ) .” ( Tromp and Van der Varst, 2008 ) . Therefore while developing a nutrient supply concatenation, one should non merely concentrate on bettering the logistics public presentation but besides in nutrient quality saving and environmental sustainability. Food merchandises are by big affected by environmental conditions. Factors such as humidness, temperature and presence of contaminations affect the nutrient quality and these factors has to be checked and controlled while packaging, lading and availing temperature controlled transit agencies and warehouses. Introducing clip temperature index ( TTI ) in analysing the quality of nutrient merchandise will let to find the degree of merchandise impairment at any phase of the nutrient distribution system. TTI allows to find the shelf life of the merchandise and because of which the sum of rejected or waste merchandises can be reduced. TTI based direction system promotes least shelf life foremost out ( LSFO ) system, where the merchandises with closest termination day of the month are given off to the markets foremost. Many of such methods to cut down waste can be implemented when a Systems Engineering position is introduced into nutrient distribution logistics. It is critical to hold an integrated attack towards logistics, sustainability and merchandise quality while carry oning analysis on nutrient supply concatenation. This would let to do better determinations than when taking merely individual facet at a clip. Some of the procedure and merchandise features which impact the designing of nutrient supply concatenation web are ;

• Seasonality in production which enhances the opportunities of planetary sourcing of production.
• Variability in procedure outputs chiefly in quality and measure which is affected by the biological fluctuations of the part, random factors like plagues, temperature, conditions and other biological jeopardies.
• Having different quality restraints for natural stuffs, intermediates and finished merchandises and quality decay when the merchandises pass through the supply concatenation, heightening the opportunities of stock-outs and merchandise impairment when the merchandise has passed the termination day of the month and/or the quality of the merchandise has declined.
• Need for conditioned storage and transit, increasing cost of production, transit, storage and ingestion.

Due to these specific features of nutrient merchandises, it is of import to hold an Industrial and Systems technology attack to develop an efficient nutrient supply concatenation web. It is indispensable that work takes topographic point in the right order and at the right clip. Industrial applied scientists help to obtain supply of natural stuffs in the right volume, quality, clip and topographic point. Organize the timing of supply of goods and to understand that the merchandises are subjected to quality decay as they travel through the supply concatenation, analysing the grade and velocity of decay influenced by environmental conditions. An industrial applied scientists attack is critical when it comes to redesigning supply concatenation schemes and procedures. Some of the functions and features of an industrial technology position include ;

• Redesigning the functions and procedures in the supply concatenation like cut downing the figure of parties involved, extinguishing the non-value adding activities and pull offing stock list control.
• Reducing the lead times by implementing IT systems for better information exchange and determination support system. Use of systems like RFID can let better direction of resources and obtain fabrication flexibleness.
• Transparency of information is critical between the assorted providers, stock list and work in procedure merchandises and to standardise the cryptography of merchandises to better understand and smooth flow within the supply concatenation. A batch of disparities and confusions can be negated by proper information exchange.
• Synchronize consumer demand with logistical procedures.
• A batch of logistical determinations and coordination in supply concatenation can be achieved by seting the batch sizes, consolidating the nutrient flow, cut downing human intercessions and implementing merchandise standardisation.

Introducing technological intercessions to assist better the communicating of merchandise when it travels down the supply concatenation has been really fruitful in the recent old ages. The usage of RFID ( Radio Frequency Identifiers ) has led to better safety of nutrient merchandises and besides let efficient handling of natural stuffs and finished merchandises and to rush up the fabrication processes. RFID allows to place objects from a distance without holding to be in a line of sight. RFID ticket besides allows to garner and convey other information like the inside informations of the merchandise and maker and can besides convey mensural environmental factors like temperature and humidness. Some of the possible utilizations of RFID engineering in nutrient industry include ;

• RFID tickets could be used to track nutrient merchandises during storage and distribution.
• Multiple RFID tickets can be used to ease machine-controlled merchandise cargos from warehouses to a retail location.
• Freshtime RFID tickets can assist to supervise the shelf life of the merchandise to which it is tagged. The tags sense temperature and humidness and the engineering is incorporated to find the shelf life of the merchandise depending on the temperature and humidness monitored.
• A new RFID based engineering is now being used which combines tracking and temperature measuring specially to guarantee nutrients such as meat, fruit and dairy merchandises are maintained at safe temperature during transit and storage. This engineering is presently being used to transport vinos, seafood, meat, domestic fowl and pharmaceuticals.

Therefore the usage of RFID can be really helpful in the distribution and keeping the quality of nutrient merchandises. Elimination of wastes and the demand to eliminate hungriness and poorness is of national importance. Even a slightest of betterment or the ability to supply nutrient for the hungry can be game modifier when it comes nutrient distribution. Understanding the function of an industrial technology and how the techniques of these constructs can assist increase the efficiency of the whole nutrient production and distribution system.

Mentions:

1. “Inadequate Food Distribution Systems” , Mission 2014: Feeding the World, hypertext transfer protocol: //12.000.scripts.mit.edu/mission2014/problems/inadequate-food-distribution-systems, Accessed September 2014.
2. Vlajic, J. V. , Van Der Varst, J.G.A.J. and Haijema, R. , “A model for planing robust nutrient supply chains” , International Journal Production Economics, 2012, Vol. 137, n.d. , p. 176-189.
3. Van der Varst, J.G.A.J. , Tromp, S. and Van der Zee, D. , “Simulation patterning for nutrient supply concatenation redesign ; integrated determination doing on merchandise quality, sustainability and logistics” , International Journal of Production Research, 2009, Vol. 47, No. 23, p. 6611-6631.
4. “Bar Coding and RFID Enable Food Supply Chain Traceability and Safety” , A Zebra Technologies White Paper, hypertext transfer protocol: //www.zebra.com/content/dam/zebra/white-papers/en-us/food-traceability-en-us.pdf, Accessed September 2014.
5. “RFID engineering may assist in maintaining nutrients safe” , Inventory Management Reliable Plant, hypertext transfer protocol: //www.reliableplant.com/Read/20768/rfid-technology-may-help-in-keeping-foods-safe, Accessed September 2014.
6. Wognum, P.M. , Bremmers, H. , Trienekens, J.H. , “Systems for sustainability and transparence of nutrient supply ironss – Current position and challenges” , Advanced Engineering Informatics, 2011, Vol. 25, n.d. , p. 65-76.
7. Scipioni, A. , Saccarola, G. and Centazzo, A. , “FMEA methodological analysis design, execution and integrating with HACCP system in a nutrient company” , Food Control, 2002, Vol. 13, n.d. , p. 495-501.

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