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Modelling the South African fresh fruit export supply chain
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Ortmann, Frank G. |
| Copyright Year | 2005 |
| Abstract | The process of modelling the fruit export infrastructure capacity of South Africa formed part of a larger project called the “Fruit Logistics Infrastructure Capacity Optimisation Study,” which was coordinated by the Transportek division of the CSIR in Stellenbosch during the period August 2002 to March 2004. The aim of this project was to create efficiencies for, and enhance the competitiveness of, the South African fruit industry by improved usage of, and investment in, shared logistics infrastructure. After putting the size of the fruit industry into perspective, numerous aspects of the export process are considered in this thesis so as to be able to perform a comprehensive cost analysis of the export of fruit, including the cost of handling, cooling and transportation. The capacities of packhouses, cold stores and terminals are found and presented. This information, combined with fruit export volumes of 2003, then allow an estimation of the current utilisation of the South African ports with respect to fruit export. The infrastructure of the fruit export industry comprises regional packhouses and cold stores, cold stores at port (harbour and airport) cities and terminals at the ports through which fruit is exported. In order to determine which segments of the infrastructure is put under the most strain during peak export periods, the maximum volume of fruit that can flow through the current infrastructure is modelled mathematically and compared to 2003 export volumes. Both network flow and linear programming models are employed, and both maximum flow and minimum cost flow solutions are found for various scenarios. This is followed by a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the (single-commodity) network theoretic approach versus the (multicommodity) mathematical programming approach. Finally, a number of suggestions and recommendations are made with respect to streamlining the fruit export process and the identification of possible points of expansion in the fruit export infrastructure. In short, it is found that the bottlenecks experienced by export role-players are not caused by a lack of logistics infrastructure capacity, and that the adoption of cooperation policies and scheduling procedures may lead to fewer bottlenecks. The minimum cost analyses also show that Maputo is the only port whose expansion may benefit South African exporters, save for reservations regarding problems at the Mozambique/South African border, available shipping lines and costs incurred. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://dip.sun.ac.za/~vuuren/Theses/Ortmann.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
