Optimisation of the national grain reserve system using a two-phase algorithm

ABSTRACT The local grain reserve system is widely recognised as the key to ensure Chinese grain security in response to emergency events. Hence, the government should optimize the amounts and locations of grain reserves. Nevertheless, the grain supply process for emergencies is hard to be analytically model due to the complexity and uncertainty. In this paper, we propose an off-site storage structure to balance the high storage cost and the lack of storage capacity. Based on the off-site storage structure, we build a simulation model of the local grain reserve system and develop a systematic two-phase optimisation algorithm to achieve the optimal scheme. The numerical results show that the optimal off-site grain storage scheme can reduce the total annual operation cost of the entire system by 16%. Finally, other managerial suggestions are proposed for the government to build a more efficient local grain reserve system.