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Cost and Waste Comparison of Reusable and Disposable Shipping Containers for Cut Flowers
Author(s) -
Menesatti Paolo,
Canali Emiliano,
Sperandio Giulio,
Burchi Gianluca,
Devlin Ger,
Costa Corrado
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
packaging technology and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1099-1522
pISSN - 0894-3214
DOI - 10.1002/pts.974
Subject(s) - reverse logistics , purchasing , supply chain , business , investment (military) , operations management , container (type theory) , return on investment , total cost , production (economics) , engineering , marketing , economics , mechanical engineering , accounting , politics , political science , law , macroeconomics
Logistics is a fundamental component of the post‐harvest processes, especially in the floricultural sector where the products have to be marketed in short times after the cutting because of their fragility. In the previous years, new approaches to efficiently manage the logistical function and to reduce costs and environmental impacts have been consolidated. In this paper, the investments for two different containers for flower transportation, one disposable and one reusable, are compared, considering a specific supply chain located in central Italy. All data were provided by stakeholders. These were divided into four groups: purchasing, administration, logistical and disposal costs. For the reusable containers, a reverse logistical system, to collect the return components, was hypothesised by using the network analysis tool of the geographic information system (GIS). Results show that the use of a reusable system, which assures a production with less waste and less environmental pressures, is also economically advantageous. Reusable containers involve an initial investment but became cheaper from the second year of the investment and also remained convenient, considering all the costs related to the return collection of the items. Reusable system permits a financial advantage of approximately 140 k€ in total and 21 k€ for each year, considering all the nine years of analysis. Logistics is responsible of the great contribution of total cost in both the reusable and the disposable container (88% and 76%), probably because of the high fragmentation in the delivery service to sale points. Reverse logistics represents the 17% of the reusable container total costs. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.