Effects of supply chain practices, integration and closed-loop supply chain activities on cost-containment of biodiesel
- PDF / 693,830 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 42 Downloads / 195 Views
Effects of supply chain practices, integration and closed‑loop supply chain activities on cost‑containment of biodiesel Suhaiza Zailani1 · Mohammad Iranmanesh2 · Behzad Foroughi2 · Kwangyong Kim3 · Sunghyup Sean Hyun4 Received: 24 April 2018 / Accepted: 11 February 2019 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Recent research has pointed out that non-technical problems, rather than technical problems, are mainly responsible for the obstacles facing the development of the biodiesel industry. The present study focused on one such important non-technical problem: that of supply chain practices. More specifically, the aim of this study is to investigate the effect of supply chain practices on supply chain integration and closed-loop supply chain activities, and consequently, on the cost-containment of biodiesel producers. Data were gathered through a survey of 108 biodiesel producers and were analysed using the partial least squares technique. The results show that all three supply chain practices have a significant effect on supply chain integration and closed-loop supply chain activities and lead to cost-containment of biodiesel. The findings are useful for managers of biodiesel companies who seek to reduce the cost of biodiesel production and to position it as a feasible alternative to fossil fuels by adopting closed-loop supply chain activities and integrating the supply chain. Keywords Biodiesel · Cost-containment · Practices · Integration · Closed-loop supply chain Mathematics Subject Classifcation 62G08
1 Introduction The world’s energy demand is highly dependent on fossil fuels, which are nonrenewable and unsustainable energy resources. Currently, fossil fuels provide around 98% of the total energy consumed in the transportation sector (Liew et al. 2014). However, fossil fuels are a limited resource, and therefore mankind cannot be dependent on this type of fuel forever. The heavy dependence on fossil fuels, the * Sunghyup Sean Hyun [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
S. Zailani et al.
high production volume of pollutants, the waste from and mismanagement of these pollutants, and the limited nature of their refinement have caused an environmental problem (Aghbashlo et al. 2019). This situation has initiated the search for alternatives to fossil fuels. In this respect, biodiesel is a potential alternative that can reduce the emission level of pollutants (Demirbas 2007; Zailani et al. 2019), and also is potentially carbon-neutral and biodegradable (Hosseinpour et al. 2016). As several researchers have shown, the major obstacle to the commercialization of biodiesel is its high cost (Ma and Hanna 1999; Zhang et al. 2003b; Demirbas 2007; Peng et al. 2008), with raw materials such as edible oil forming the major part of its production cost (Van Kasteren and Nisworo 2007). According to Gui et al. (2008), currently, edible oil is the source of more than 95% of biodiesel. However, Meng et al. (2008) hav
Data Loading...
