Nowadays the use of fossil fuels as a non-renewable energy source has become a major challenge because of the pollution and the environmental impact. Substitution of biomass as an energy source and its supply chain design is the main question. Because of difficulties such as supply chain complexity, uncertainty in variables and selecting the site of bio-refineries many studies have been conducted in this regard. Studies in the field of biomass and biofuel production are described and classified. Also the strategic decisions such as choosing the sites, selecting energy conversation technology, ensuring economic, environmental, technical, and social sustainability and tactical decisions including allocating resources to productive plants, selecting transport modes, and types of warehouses are addressed in the reviewed papers. We have reviewed 140 papers in the interval between 1997 and 2016 and classified them based on the objective functions. The articles are classified based on their being single or multi objectivity, linearity or nonlinearity. Finally, a classification based on the regions in which the studies have been done.

In this paper we develop an inventory model for deteriorating items with price sensitive demand. Generally the vendor offers a cash discount or fix time period to the retailer to pay all the dues. According to the availability of money the retailer chooses his/her option. In this paper we discuss the possible cases of permissible delay and cash discount. The shortages are allowed in this model and are partially backlogged. Holding cost is considered as varying function of time, which reflects a more realistic concept. The purpose of this study is to optimize the overall cost of the system and to compute optimal ordering quantity. Numerical examples for different cases are also presented to illustrate the study. A sensitivity analysis with regard to distinct associated parameters is shown to make sure the constancy of the model.

This paper presents a survey to identify and rank the supply chain management factors influencing the quality of the products for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in food industry. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale and distributes it among 238 randomly selected managers of SMEs in food industry in city of Tehran, Iran. Cronbach alpha is calculated as 0.851, which is well above the acceptable level. Using principle component with Varimax rotation, the study has determined four important factors including strategic management, product management, manufacturing process management, organizational resources, customer orientation, industry capacity, which influence the most on product quality improvement.

In this paper, an inventory model is studied with ramp type demand rate where holding cost is expressed as linearly increasing function of time. The study includes some features that are likely to be associated with certain types of inventory, like inventory of seasonal fruits and vegetables, newly launched fashion items, etc. When stock on hand is zero, the inventory manager offers a price discount to customers who are willing to backorder their demand. The optimum ordering policy and the optimum discount offered for each backorder are determined by minimizing the total cost in a replenishment interval.

Due to environmental issues, social concerns, increased pollution and enforced regulations; organizations are focusing to include green practices in their supply chain. This can be accomplished by adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices. Therefore, GSCM is now a proactive approach for firms to increase their ecological performance, corporate image, achieve competitive advantages and sustainable business practices. This study identifies, evaluate and analyze the critical factors (CFs) for successful implementation of GSCM practices. The proposed study uses hybrid Fuzzy DEMATEL model to prioritize the identified critical success factors (CSFs) for GSCM adoption. Fuzzy approach is integrated with DEMATEL to deal with uncertainty arises in decision making process. To demonstrate the application of the proposed approach a case study from electronic industry is considered. This approach investigates the cause and effect relationships among the CFs for successful adoption of GSCM practices in Indian electronic organizations.

This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the role of quality in supply chain management in development of brand equity. The study uses two questionnaires, one for measuring quality in supply chain adopted from Fynes et al. (2014) [Fynes, B., De Burca, S., & Marshall, D. (2004). Environmental uncertainty, supply chain relationship quality and performance. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 10(4), 179-190.] and the other for measuring the brand equity, which was adopted from Buil et al. (2013) [Buil, I., De Chernatony, L., & Martínez, E. (2013). Examining the role of advertising and sales promotions in brand equity creation. Journal of Business Research, 66(1), 115-122.]. The survey has accomplished among auto part producers in Iran. The study selects 385 randomly selected people who were active in this industry. Using Spearman correlation ratio as well as Stepwise regression techniques, the study has concluded that there were positive and meaningful relationships between three supply chain factors, namely relationship, commitment and compatibility, and brand equity.