Article ID: | iaor20128017 |
Volume: | 225 |
Issue: | 2 |
Start Page Number: | 253 |
End Page Number: | 262 |
Publication Date: | Mar 2013 |
Journal: | European Journal of Operational Research |
Authors: | Piramuthu Selwyn, Grunow Martin, Farahani Poorya |
Keywords: | supply & supply chains |
As perishable food supply networks become more complex, incidents of contamination in these supply networks have become fairly common. Added to this complexity is the fact that there have been long delays in identifying the contamination source in several such incidents. Even when the contamination source was identified, there have been cases where the ultimate destination of all contaminated products were not known with complete certainty due, in part, to dispersion in these supply networks. We study the recall dynamics in a three‐stage perishable food supply network through three different visibility levels in the presence of contamination. Specifically, we consider allocation of liability among the different players in the perishable supply network based on the accuracy with which the contamination source is identified. We illustrate the significance of finer levels of granularity both upstream and downstream as well as determine appropriate visibility levels and recall policies.