Côte d’Ivoire produces about 42 percent of the world’s total Cocoa but processes only a very few amount of the production. A big part of the country depends on the commercial benefits of the Cocoa production and supply chain of it. For that reason, the World Bank asked the simulation group of the Amsterdam U. of Applied Sciences in collaboration with the Port of Amsterdam to develop a simulation model that allows the politicians assess the performance of the supply chain of the Cocoa in that region of the world. The simulation model gave light to the potential of improvement in the supply chain by identifying inefficiencies, bottlenecks and blockers that hinder the efficient transport of Cocoa in the chain with the consequence of low productivity. The most important results are presented in the article together with suggestions for improvement in order to increase the wellbeing of the farmers in that region of Africa.
MULTIFILE
Côte d’Ivoire produces about 42 percent of the world’s total Cocoa but processes only a very few amount of the production. A big part of the country depends on the commercial benefits of the Cocoa production and supply chain of it. For that reason, the World Bank asked the simulation group of the Amsterdam U. of Applied Sciences in collaboration with the Port of Amsterdam to develop a simulation model that allows the politicians assess the performance of the supply chain of the Cocoa in that region of the world. The simulation model gave light to the potential of improvement in the supply chain by identifying inefficiencies, bottlenecks and blockers that hinder the efficient transport of Cocoa in the chain with the consequence of low productivity. The most important results are presented in the article together with suggestions for improvement in order to increase the wellbeing of the farmers in that region of Africa.
The COVID19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability in supply chain networks in the healthcare sector and the tremendous waste problem of disposable healthcare products, such as isolation gowns. Single-use disposable isolation gowns cause great ecological impact. Reusable gowns can potentially reduce climate impacts and improve the resilience of healthcare systems by ensuring a steady supply in times of high demand. However, scaling reusable, circular isolation gowns in healthcare organizations is not straightforward. It is impeded by economic barriers – such as servicing costs for each use – and logistic and hygiene barriers, as processes for transport, storage and safety need to be (re)designed. Healthcare professionals (e.g. purchasing managers) lack complete information about social, economic and ecological costs, the true cost of products, to make informed circular purchasing decisions. Additionally, the residual value of materials recovered from circular products is overlooked and should be factored into purchasing decisions. To facilitate the transition to circular procurement in healthcare, purchasing managers need more fine-grained, dynamic information on true costs. Our RAAK Publiek proposal (MODLI) addresses a problem that purchasing managers face – making purchasing decisions that factor in social, economic and ecological costs and future benefits from recovered materials. Building on an existing consortium that developed a reusable and recyclable isolation gown, we design and develop an open-source decision-support tool to inform circular procurement in healthcare organizations and simulate various purchasing options of non-circular and circular products, including products from circular cascades. Circular procurement is considered a key driver in the transition to a circular economy as it contributes to closing energy and material loops and minimizes negative impacts and waste throughout entire product lifecycles. MODLI aims to support circular procurement policies in healthcare organizations by providing dynamic information for circular procurement decision making.