A Sustainability Comparison of Traditional Supply Chains and Physical Internet Supply Chains Using Simulation

Abstract

Sustainability is one of the most important topics that should be considered by every sector because it helps to reduce the harmful environmental effects of operations. Supply chain operations have significant impacts on environmental, social and economic issues, and therefore, sustainable supply chains have become an important issue for the companies. Also, Physical Internet (PI) is one of the recent research topics in supply chain literature and it helps to provide sustainability. The contribution of this study to the literature is the comparison of traditional supply chain and Physical Internet supply chain structures with simulation in terms of sustainability. The simulation models are tested on realistic but hypothetical case studies. Each simulation model consists of three echelons (supplier, distribution center and retailer) and is developed by using ARENA 14.0 software. The physical internet and the traditional are compared according to carbon emissions, and the results are discussed in detail.