Platforms planning and process optimization for biofuels supply chain

Sustainable biofuel supply chain is a key to sustainable manufacturing and the future of production. Greener production is now becoming an order qualifier for the global competition. Modeling biofuel supply chains that achieve economic, social, and environmental feasibility is a challenge. This article develops biofuel platform planning and optimization that unifies biofuel product, production process and networks design into an umbrella of sustainable supply chain planning. A design of biofuel supply chain networks under various production paths is considered. The modeling results show that an optimum region of composition ratio between rice straws and waste cooking oils can be set within the
range from 0% to 50%. Bio-diesel is favored over ethanol by occupying over 40% of the total biofuel outputs. However, ethanol yield is 99.1% and therefore it is sufficient to be directly mixed with gasoline at final depots. In terms of social contribution, it is estimated that the supply chain contribution to the case country GDP is about 0.17%. Looking at the above statistics, future research on global economic impacts and competitiveness of biofuel production is suggested.