Virtualization of food supply chains with the internet of things

TLDR

Internet technologies enable food supply chains to virtualize operations, allowing remote, real‑time monitoring, control, planning, and optimization through virtual objects, and enabling self‑adaptive systems where smart objects autonomously operate, decide, and learn. The study analyzes virtual food supply chains from an IoT perspective and proposes an architecture for enabling information systems. The architecture, designed to enable information systems for virtual food supply chains, is applied as a proof of concept to a fish supply chain case study. The architecture is expected to improve support for food companies in managing perishables, supply variability, and food safety and sustainability, and to provide a foundation for virtual supply chain optimization, simulation, and decision support using online operational data.

Abstract

Internet technologies allow supply chains to use virtualizations dynamically in operational management processes. This will improve support for food companies in dealing with perishable products, unpredictable supply variations and stringent food safety and sustainability requirements. Virtualization enables supply chain actors to monitor, control, plan and optimize business processes remotely and in real-time through the Internet, based on virtual objects instead of observation on-site. This paper analyses the concept of virtual food supply chains from an Internet of Things perspective and proposes an architecture to implement enabling information systems. As a proof of concept, the architecture is applied to a case study of a fish supply chain. These developments are expected to establish a basis for virtual supply chain optimization, simulation and decision support based on on-line operational data. In the Internet of Things food supply chains can become self-adaptive systems in which smart objects operate, decide and learn autonomously.