Cold Supply Chain Processes in a Fruit-and-Vegetable(4)

果蔬冷链

6 M.V. de-la-Fuente and L. Ros

achieved by collaboration, and operationally based on agreed principles and inter-operable infrastructures which allow them to cope with their heterogeneity [3,5].

As aforementioned, internal and external competition in the fruit and vegetable industry obliges those companies involved to continually innovate in terms of range of products, growing techniques and product presentation, and to improve in such aspects as food handling, storage systems, loading and unloading techniques, etc. There are various reasons behind all these innovations, but they are mainly determined by consumers and food safety rules, and must respond to the different problems posed by the agents/companies in the sector.

The pursuit of the PROCONET Project research team may be defined as "comprehensive traceability of agri-food road transport at controlled temperature", which, on the basis of logistic processes (either full loads or groupages) may grant access to experimenting with electronic CMRs by means of controlling technological variables involved in the said logistical processes.

Today’s existing traceability models for the food sector focus on certain products (milk, eggs, beef, transgenic products, etc.). The food safety and traceability model presented in this paper results from the lack of legislation in the agri-food sector and also from recommendations issued by both Spanish and European organizations during the last decade [1,7,11].

The PROCONET Project focuses on the construction of a prototype for strategic design of nodes in a logistics network. It incorporates the necessary concepts, models and supporting tools related to the design of the process flow and the choice of technology. The operation of the prototype will be validated with global supply chain processes for perishable products. Global supply chain processes will consider both full loads and groupages. Special attention will be given to the impact of INCOTERM agreements. The prototype will support intermodal logistics processes as an added value.

The project will develop a platform for knowledge management in a collaborative fruit-and-vegetable network, which supports the communication processes within that network (see Figure 1). Connected to the Operations Planning and Control System application run by each of the member companies in the collaborative network, this platform will design and manage such crucial elements as:

(a) Route maps (scheduled departures and arrivals, checkpoints, etc.) linked to

existing applications may display real-time information on the location of transport units and related data (dispatch time, average speed, cargo temperature, etc.).

(b) Route maps connected with invoicing systems in such a way that the logistics

company may invoice for the service given at the time of collection / delivery. (c) Transport management and management of fleet condition, resource utilization,

reduction of polluting emissions, data control.

The PROCONET platform, or integrated model for communication between transport systems and logistics companies, will allow, through GPS (Global Positioning System), to know where the merchandise is at any given time, facilitating its transport and delivery in terms of traceability and food safety.