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 ithelps to reduce the harmful environmental effects of operations. Supply chain operations have significantimpacts on environmental, social and economic issues, and therefore, sustainable supply chains havebecome an important issue for the companies. Also, Physical Internet (PI) is one of the recent researchtopics in supply chain literature and it helps to provide sustainability. The contribution of this study to theliterature is the comparison of traditional supply chain and PI structures with simulation in terms ofsustainability. The simulation models are tested on realistic but hypothetical case studies. Each simulationmodel consists of three echelons (supplier, distribution center and retailer) and is developed by usingARENA 14.0 software. The PI and the traditional are compared according to carbon emissions, and theresults are discussed in detail. The results show that the emission level of PI is significantly lower than theemission level of traditional supply chain structures. Also, larger vehicle capacity reduces the total carbonemissions in both traditional supply chains and PI due to the reduced number of trips.