Annals of Operations Research

, Volume 219, Issue 1, pp 5–23 | Cite as

New opportunities in operations research to improve pork supply chain efficiency

  • Sara V. Rodríguez
  • Lluis M. Plà
  • Javier Faulin
Article
First Online:

Abstract

The structure of the pork sector in world economy is changing. In many countries the number of pig farms is being reduced, while the herd size of the remaining ones is increasing. Pig production process is partitioned into different phases with specialized farms devoted to piglet production, rearing or fattening pigs are common instead of old farrowing-to-fattening farms. Pig farms have tended to be integrated and coordinate their operations into pork supply chains by using tighter vertical coordination linkages. This paper presents a description of the pork supply chain, stressing the role of pig farming as one of the key issues to improve pork supply chain efficiency. A survey of literature to support the decision making on the pork sector has revealed that most papers had only considered individual farm operations, while the pork supply chain management involves the coordination of sets of farm units at different stages of production. Thus, our contribution emphasizes the importance and complexity of new decision-making tasks regarding the modern organization of the pork sector. All these elements make it possible to envisage new opportunities for operations research methods to be successfully applied to the pork supply chain. Likewise, we have identified some existing gaps in the literature that we believe should be addressed in the near future.

Keywords

Pork supply chain management Sow herd models Pork sector Supply chain management models 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the financial help from the Working Community of the Pyrenees in the development of this research (code IIQ13172.RI1-CTP09-R2). Sara V. Rodriguez acknowledges the Mexican Mathematical Society-Sofia Kovalevskaia Foundation, the project NPTC founded by PROMEP PROMEAP/103.5/11/4330, and the AMC-FUMEC for the grant received during the development of this work. Lluis M. Plà wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Spanish Research Program (MTM2005-09362-C03-02, AGL2009-12026 and MTM2009-14087-C04-01). Javier Faulin wants also to recognize the financial aid of the Spanish Ministry of Science with the project TRA2010-21644-C03-01 and the support of the Research Network “Sustainable TransMET” funded by the Government of Navarre (Spain) in the Program “Jerónimo de Ayanz”.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Sara V. Rodríguez
    • 1
    • 2
  • Lluis M. Plà
    • 2
  • Javier Faulin
    • 3
  1. 1.Graduate Program in System Engineering 111-FUniversidad Autonoma de Nuevo LeonCiudad Universitaria San Nicolas de los GarzaMexico
  2. 2.Department of MathematicsUniversity of LleidaLleidaSpain
  3. 3.Department of Statistics and Operations ResearchPublic University of NavarrePamplonaSpain

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