Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Industrial Crops and Products

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/indcrop

Biomass supply chain network design: An optimization-oriented

review and analysis
Hamid Ghaderi, Mir Saman Pishvaee, Alireza Moini ∗
School of Industrial Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Optimal network design is a key factor in the enhancement of the economic, environmental, and social
Received 11 March 2016 performance and efficiency of the biomass supply chain (BSC), and this is why it has become quite popular
Received in revised form 5 September 2016 with the academia and practitioners. The great number of the related papers published in the scientific
Accepted 12 September 2016
journals in recent years is the proof of the claim; therefore, to make a framework of the past works and
specify the future directions, a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art papers deems necessary.
Keywords:
The objective of this paper is to review the papers regarding the biomass supply chain network design
Biomass
(BSCND) models published in the scientific journals. A total number of 146 papers, published from Jan.
Biofuel
Bioenergy
1997 to Jul. 2016 are reviewed, analyzed and classified based on their modeling approaches, decisions,
Supply chain uncertainties, solution methodologies, sustainability, model features, entities, data, and regions of the
Network design case studies. To determine the research opportunities and future directions, the gaps existing in the
Optimization models present literature have been clearly explained as well.
© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973
2. Research motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973
3. Research methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973
3.1. Material collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
3.2. Descriptive analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
3.3. Category selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
3.4. Material evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
4. Detailed analyses of the literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
4.1. Decisions in biomass supply chain network design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
4.1.1. Facility-related strategic decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
4.1.2. Biomass-related strategic decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974
4.1.3. Final product-related strategic decisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 975
4.2. Modeling approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 983
4.2.1. Mathematical programming approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 984
4.2.2. Multi-criteria decision making. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .989
4.2.3. Heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 989

Abbreviations: BSC, Biomass Supply Chain; BSCND, Biomass Supply Chain Network Design; GIS, Geographical Information Systems; EDSS, Environmental Decision Support
System; LP, Linear Programming; NLP, Non-linear Programming; MINLP, Mixed Integer Non-linear Programming; MCDM, Multi-Criteria Decision Making; MADM, Multi-
Attribute Decision Making; MODM, Multi-Objective Decision Making; BHBF, Binary Honey Bee Foraging; GA, Genetic Algorithm; PSO, Particle Swarm Optimization; SAA,
Sample Average Approximation; LA, Lagrangian Relaxation; CA, Continuum Approximation; CS, Commercial Solver; EA, Exact Algorithm; HMA, Heuristic, Meta-heuristic and
Approximation algorithms.
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: moini@iust.ac.ir, moiniam@gmail.com (A. Moini).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.indcrop.2016.09.027
0926-6690/© 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 973

4.3. Solution methodologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991

4.4. Model characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992
4.4.1. Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992
4.4.2. Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992
4.5. Uncertainty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .992
4.6. Sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992
4.7. Entities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 993
4.8. Data and region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
5. Conclusions and directions for future research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000
Web references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1000

1. Introduction Section 2, explain the research methodology in Section 3, classify,

analyze, and present the future research opportunities in Section 4
The population growth, changes in the life style, and the rise and, finally, conclude and propose the future directions in Section
in the man’s living standards have all led to an increase in the 5.
energy consumption in the world, specifically, in the industrial
countries. Bioenergy production systems, as a part of the solu-
tion to this problem, have attracted much attention in recent years 2. Research motivation
because they can be appropriate substitutes for the traditional
energy production systems which are, in addition to being finite and In this section, some review papers have been evaluated in
nonrenewable, associated with environmental problems (Sathre, order to show their shortcomings and specify the importance of
2014) as well. According to the European Union, biomass is defined the present review. So far, no review has been done that specifically
as the biodegradable elements of the products, urban and indus- studies the BSCND problem; however, the works by (Sharma et al.,
trial waste, agricultural residues, forests and the related industries 2013a) and (De Meyer et al., 2014) are among the reviews which
which are used as the feedstock for producing biofuels and gener- have considered BSCND models. The former work covers the papers
ating heat and power in the bioenergy production systems. of up to 2011, and the latter one those of up to 2012. Sharma et al.
The biomass feedstock, biofuels, and the related production pro- (2013a) studied 32 papers out of which 30 were about BSCND. In
cesses can be classified into three generations. To produce the first their work, they firstly describe energy trends, renewable energy
generation biofuel, use is made of sugars and vegetable oils which targets, biomass feedstock needed for biofuel production, and the
are capable of being turned into biofuel through ordinary technolo- conversion process in the BSC. Then, they present a comprehensive
gies. Most of the feedstock used in this process can be used as food review of some selected papers in order to analyze the mathemat-
too (Banerjee et al., 2010) and endanger the safety of the food sup- ical programming models developed for the BSC and identify the
ply. Therefore, the trend has changed to using non-food feedstock. future works and challenges. They consider different strategic deci-
On the other hand, the use of the latter is associated with many sions related to each facility (including location and capacity) in
challenges, from biomass cultivation to biofuel production technol- an integrated form, but do not study the approaches and factors
ogy (Rentizelas et al., 2009b). The second generation biofuels are related to uncertainty, dynamism and solution methods. De Meyer
produced from such non-food feedstock as lignocellulosic biomass, et al. (2014) reviewed 71 papers selected in the area of biomass-for-
woody crops, and agricultural residues or waste which make the bioenergy supply chains in which 68 are related to BSCND problem.
fuel production process more difficult. The third generation bio- The focus of this review is mainly on the optimization methods used
fuel, recently joined the main classification, is the one produced in the design and management of BSCs. They firstly give a gen-
from algae. The main obstacle to the commercialization of the sec- eral definition of the BSC and the decisions made in its design and
ond and third generation biofuels is their difficult and complicated management. Then, a classification of the selected papers is done
production processes. The biofuel production necessitates the flow based on: (1) mathematical optimization approaches, (2) decision
of the biomass feedstock from the supply sites to the demand cen- level and decision variables, and (3) objective functions. Similar to
ters. Along this route, the biomass passes through some facilities the review done by Sharma et al. (2013a), the factors related to
and undergoes various processes called the biomass supply chain. uncertainties and dynamism as well as solution methods used to
Each part of the supply chain needs specific knowledge, technology solve the models are neglected in (De Meyer et al., 2014). Moreover,
and activities including growing, harvesting, transporting, integrat- the biomass feedstock, the final product, and entities in the supply
ing, storing, converting, distributing, and consuming. In addition, chain are not considered in this review.
depending on the type of biomass, final product, and the conver- According to the huge number of papers published in the area
sion technology, it may be necessary to add some pretreatment, of BSC and the lack of systemic review in this context, this research
intermediate, and blending sites in the supply chain. aims to provide a comprehensive structured review on BSCND
The optimal design is an important factor in the enhancement problem. This review provides a complete but systemic analysis
of the economic, environmental, and social performance and effi- on 146 papers published in the area of BSCND from 1997 to 2016.
ciency of the BSC. In recent years, the growing interest towards Some important factors neglected in the previous reviews such as
using renewable energy resources has increased the decisions uncertainty of parameters, dynamism and solution methods are
made on the design of BSC (Balaman and Selim, 2014), but no considered in this research in order to provide an appropriate and
efforts have been made to systematically review, analyze and clas- comprehensive view for the readers.
sify related papers and specify the potential research opportunities
and the future directions. Effort has been made in this paper to
show the gap in the present literature through a review of 146 3. Research methodology
papers published from Jan. 1997 to Jul. 2016. It has been so orga-
nized as to discuss two previous review papers on the BSCND in The research methodology used in this paper is inspired by the
methodology proposed by (Mayring, 2011) and includes four main
974 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000
steps: (1) material collection, (2) descriptive analysis, (3) category
selection, and (4) material evaluation.
3.1. Material collection
The description of step 1, namely material collection, is
described in this part. During the search process, the BSCND related
papers accepted in English scientific journals (available online)
from the beginning of Jan. 1997 to Jul. 2016 were covered. First, a
maximum of one keyword was selected from each keyword group
in Table 1 and different combinations were made. Next, the word
combinations were searched in the Google Scholar Search Engine
(https://scholar.google.com/) for the time period from Jan. 1997
to Jul. 2016. After finding the papers, their abstracts were glanced
online and archived (if related) to be studied more precisely later in
the preparation of the present review; this resulted in the selection
of 146 papers.
3.2. Descriptive analysis
A significant effort has been made in this study, to evaluate
the 146 selected papers considering the features introduced in the
BSCND discussion. Our early investigations show that these papers
have been published in 65 different Journals (138 papers), 5 Con-
ferences (5 papers), 2 Symposiums (2 papers), and 1 Congress (1
paper) (see Fig. 1) which are obtained from various publishers such
as ScienceDirect (http://www.sciencedirect.com/), Informs (http://
pubsonline.informs.org/), Elsevier (www.elsevier.com), Springer
(www.springerlink.com), Taylor & Francis (http://taylorandfrancis.
com/), Wiley (http://www.wiley.com), IEEE (http://ieeexplore.ieee.
org/Xplore/home.jsp), ACS (www.pubs.acs.org), AIDIC (www.aidic.
it), Inderscience (http://www.inderscience.com/), LBNL (https://
commons.lbl.gov/display/rst/LBNL+Journals), Finish Society of For-
est Science (http://www.metsatieteellinenseura.fi/english). As
shown in Fig. 1, Biomass and Bioenergy with 18 papers (12.33%)
ranks first in publishing such papers. The first paper on BSCND was
published in 1997. Fig. 2 shows the number of the papers published
each year; as shown in Fig. 2, the number of BSCND-related pub-
lished papers has an increasing trend, and in 2016 it reaches its
highest value (21 papers, 14.38%).
3.3. Category selection
The classification applied in this review is formed based on
different features and properties of BSCND models. Also, the clas-
sifications used in (De Meyer et al., 2014; Sharma et al., 2013a)
and (Govindan et al., 2015) are used as benchmark to check the
comprehensiveness of the proposed classification framework. The
main topics and categories used to classify the papers are shown in
Fig. 3. As shown in Fig. 3, the selected papers are classified based
on such topics as decision variables, entities, modeling approaches,
solution methodologies, model features, uncertainty, sustainabil-
ity, data and region of the case studies.
3.4. Material evaluation
The use of deductive/inductive methods in the validation stage
enhances the credibility of the research. Also, the application of
spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel and Access in the
evaluation and analysis phase reduces errors (Govindan et al.,
2015). To make sure of the completeness of the set of collected
papers and of the precision of the Google Scholar Search Engine, the
keywords are searched again in the WOS and SCOPUS data bases,
and those papers not found in the first search are added to the list.
4. Detailed analyses of the literature
In this section, the selected papers are evaluated and analyzed
based on the classification criteria so as to identify the gap in the
literature and the potential opportunities for future researches.
4.1. Decisions in biomass supply chain network design
In the supply chain management, planning decisions can be cat-
egorized in three levels including (1) strategic, (2) tactical, and
(3) operational with respect to planning time horizon (Mula et al.,
2010). Basically, BSCND decisions are of the first category (strategic-
level) because they cannot be changed in short term, and they have
long-term effects on the entire supply chain. Also, they generally
require high investments, and they may need revision after about
3–8 years (De Meyer et al., 2014). All network design decisions
affect one another and this is why they should be integrated. Table 2
shows the evaluation of BSCND papers based on such strategic
decisions as sourcing, allocation of biomass between facilities, the
biomass feedstock and final product type in the case studies, pro-
duction technology as well as the capacity and location decisions
considered in BSCND models (Awudu and Zhang, 2012). Consid-
ering their nature and to analyze them better, strategic decisions
are classified, in this paper, into three general classes of (1) facility-
related, (2) biomass-related, and (3) final product-related.
4.1.1. Facility-related strategic decisions
This class includes decisions regarding the technology, capac-
ity, and location of different facilities including supply, collection,
preprocessing, processing, intermediate processing, blending, and
distribution sites (Sharma et al., 2013a). These decisions can specif-
ically and separately determine the location and/or the capacity of
each facility. Fig. 4 shows the strategic decision variables related
to each facility. As shown in Fig. 4, the processing facility has the
highest number of decision variables, and the location of this facil-
ity has attracted more attention than the other facilities. In most
of mathematical models existing in the literature, this decision is
stated in the form of a binary variable that shows the establish-
ment of a processing site in a potential location in a known period
of time. Notably, locations of the processing sites directly affect
the allocation of the biomass feedstock. Nearness of the supply and
processing sites is a factor that results in competition among the
biomass supply regions (Chen and Önal, 2014). The reason goes
back to its low bulk density; biomass feedstock occupies much
space, which causes an increase in the transportation costs espe-
cially in long distances (Richard, 2010). Since such costs depend
much on the processing site location, the corresponding facility
location decision should be optimized. Similarly, optimal location
and capacity of other facilities can decrease biomass supply chain
costs. However, this review concludes that the little attention paid
to the strategic decisions related to the other facilities is a gap in the
literature. With an increase in the model flexibility, such decisions
will lead to the design of BSCs with lesser total costs.
4.1.2. Biomass-related strategic decisions
The biomass-related strategic decisions include the determina-
tion of biomass type, sourcing and allocation decisions (see Table 2).
Evaluations have revealed that in 54.8% of the published papers, the
developed models have been multi-feedstock; however, only 45.2%
of the case studies have studied multi-feedstock supply chains.
Fig. 5 shows the application trend of the single and multi-feedstock
models in different years. As shown in Fig. 5, single-feedstock mod-
els have had a growing trend in recent years. Although multiple
sources of biomass decreases such lateral supply chain costs as
transportation, insurance, and communication as well as price (due
to the suppliers’ rivalry), it increases the need for various produc-
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 975

Table 1
Keyword groups for the searching process in Google scholar.

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5

Biomass Supply chain Design Optimization Uncertainty

Biofuel Supply system Network design Optimizing Risk
Bioenergy Network Optimize Disruption
Bioethanol Optimal Vulnerability
Biodiesel Stochastic
Robust
Possibilistic
Fuzzy

40
35 38
30
25
20
15 18
10
11 10 10
5 8 9
3 2 3 2 5 3 4 2 3 3 7 5
0

Fig. 1. Distribution of publications based on different journals (146 papers: 1997–2016).

25

21
20 19
18
17

15 14

11 11
10 10
10

5
3 3
2 2 2
1 1 1
0 0 0
0

Fig. 2. Distribution of publications per year across the period of the study (146 papers: 1997–2016).

tion technologies in various supply chain facilities. These are the
main factors which caused less popularity of multiple sourcing in
BSCND models. Table 3 shows the evaluation and classification of
the reviewed papers based on the biomass feedstock, final prod-
uct and its generation according to the classification presented in
(Sharma et al., 2013a). As shown in Table 3, the second-generation
biomass is the most widely studied generation in BSCND papers.
The agricultural and animal residues and woody crops are also
among the popular second-generation biomass in BSCND studies.
It should be noted that the first generation biomass is based on the
materials that can also be used as human food (such as corn, sugar
cane and soybean) and the consumption of such materials endan-
gers the human foods supply. The researchers’ concern regarding
the substitution of the food biomass by the non-food biomass is
characterized by the increase in the number of papers published
on the second-generation biomass in recent years.
Sourcing can be defined as specifying the sources, assuring the
supply, insuring supply source diversification, and collecting infor-
mation from procurable sources (Driedonks et al., 2010). Based on
Table 2, only 43.15% of the papers have sourcing decision mean-
ing that the supplier selection and management have not been of
much importance in BSCND models. Allocating biomass to various
production facilities depends on the distances between supply sites
and production facilities, the biomass type, the production technol-
ogy, and the capacity of each facility. Table 2 shows that in 78% of
the existing papers, the biomass allocation is considered in BSCND
models.
 976
Table 2
Strategic decisions in the biomass supply chain network design models.

Ref. Facilities Biomass Final-product

Location Capacity Technology Sourcing Allocation Multi Feedstock Biomass type in case Multi Product Product types in case
studies studies

Cundiff et al. (1997) CC x Switchgrass Bioethanol

Mol et al. (1997) LP x Thinning, restwood, Biofuel
prunings, waste wood,
sewage sludge or
waste paper
Nagel (2000) LP CP x x Wood, straw, biogas, x Heat, power
rapeseed
Tembo et al. (2003) LP CP x x x Tall native prairies, Bioethanol

H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

mixed native prairies,
bermudagrass, tall
fescue, switchgrass
Tatsiopoulos and Tolis (2003) LP CP x Cotton-plant stalks x Heat, power
Freppaz et al. (2004) CP x x Forest biomass x Thermal, electric
energy
Gunnarsson et al. (2004) LC x x Forest residue Heat
Morrow et al. (2006) x Switchgrass, corn Bioethanol
Mapemba et al. (2007) LP CP x x x Logging residuals, Bioethanol
thinnings, prunings,
grasses, chips/shavings
Dunnett et al. (2007) LS, LP CS, CP x Miscanthus Heat
Mapemba et al. (2008) LP CP x x x Corn stover, wheat x Bioethanol and other
straw, products
Old world bluestem,
tall fescue,
bermudagrass, native
tall, native medium,
native short,
switchgrass
Vlachos et al. (2008) LF x Wheat straw Heat
Frombo et al. (2009b) LP CP x x x Forest biomass x Thermal energy,
electricity
Zamboni et al. (2009b) LP CP x x x Corn Bioethanol
Rentizelas et al. (2009a) LP CP x x Wheat straw, corn x Electricity, heat
stalks, cotton stalks,
olive tree prunings,
almond tree prunings
Ekşioğlu et al. (2009) LC, LP CC, CP x x x Corn stover, woody E10
biomass (forest
residues,
Pulpwood, sawtimber)
Huang et al. (2010) LP CP x x x Corn stover, rice straw, Bioethanol
wheat straw, forest
residues, MSW wood,
MSW paper, MSW
yard, cotton residues
Table 2 (Continued)

Ref. Facilities Biomass Final-product

Location Capacity Technology Sourcing Allocation Multi Feedstock Biomass type in case Multi Product Product types in case
studies studies

Akgul et al. (2010) LP CP x x Corn Bioethanol

Kim et al. (2010) LP CP x x Logging residuals, x Gasoline, biodiesel
thinnings, prunings,
grasses, chips/shavings
Dal-Mas et al. (2011) LP CP x Corn Bioethanol
Zhu et al. (2011) LC, LP x Switchgrass Bioethanol
Alex Marvin et al. (2012) LP CP x x Agricultural residues Bioethanol
An et al. (2011) LF CF x x switchgrass, mill Bioethanol
residues, and urban

H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

wood wastes
Bai et al. (2011) LP x Corn and cellulosic Bioethanol
biomass
You et al. (2012) LC, LP CC, CP x x x Agricultural residue, Bioethanol
energy crops, wood
residues
You and Wang (2011) LPP, LP, LIP CPP, CP, CIP x x x x Crop stover, energy x Gasoline, biodiesel
crops, wood residues
Lam et al. (2011) LIP x x x Corn, wheat, potatoes x Heat, bioethanol,
electricity
Zhu and Yao (2011) LC, LP CS x x x Switchgrass, corn stalk, Bioethanol
Wheat straw
Kim et al. (2011a) LP CP x x Logging residuals, x Gasoline, biodiesel
thinnings, prunings,
grasses, chips/shavings
Chen and Fan (2012) LD, LP CP x x Bio-waste Bioethanol
Frombo et al. (2009a) CP x x Woody biomass x Heat, electricity
Panichelli and Gnansounou (2008) LP x Forest wood residues Electricity
Perpina et al. (2009) LP Agricultural Biofuel
And forest residue
Aksoy et al. (2011) LP x x Forest residues, mill x Fischer-Tropsch
residues fuels, power
Andersen et al. (2012) LP CS x x x Soybean, sunflower, Biodiesel
jatropha
Bowling et al. (2011) LPP, LP CPP, CP Vegetable oil x Biodiesel, meal, heat,
power
Mas et al. (2010) LS, LP CP x Corn Bioethanol
Leão et al. (2011) LPP CS x Vegetable oil Biodiesel
Dunnett et al. (2008) LP CP x x Crop residue (wheat Bioethanol
straw or corn stover)
Giarola et al. (2011a) LP CP x x x x Corn, stover x Bioethanol, DDGS,
power
Kanzian et al. (2009) LC x x Woody biomass Electricity
Kim et al. (2011b) LP CP x x Logging residuals, x Gasoline, biodiesel
thinnings, prunings,
grasses, chips/ shavings

977
 978
Table 2 (Continued)

Ref. Facilities Biomass Final-product

Location Capacity Technology Sourcing Allocation Multi Feedstock Biomass type in case Multi Product Product types in case
studies studies

Čuček et al. (2010) LIP x x Corn, corn stover, Electricity, heat,

forest biomass bioethanol, digestate,
DDGS,
boards
Leduc et al. (2008) LP x Wood x Methanol, heat,
electricity
Leduc et al. (2009) LP x Jatropha Biodiesel
Leduc et al. (2010) LP CP x Forest biomass x Bioethanol, biogas,
heat, power

H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Mele et al. (2011) CC, CP x x x Sugar cane x Sugar, bioethanol
Parker et al. (2010) LP CP x x x Agricultural, forest, x Bioethanol, biodiesel
urban, energy crop
biomass
Giarola et al. (2012) LP CP x x x Corn, poplar, willow, x Bioethanol, DDGS,
miscanthus, corn power
stover, wheat straw,
barley straw,
switchgrass
Avami (2012) CS, CP x x x Palm oil, cotton seed, Biodiesel
wheat germ, rapeseed,
soybean
Balaman and Selim (2014) LC, LP CP x x Cattle manure, layer Biogas
Hen manure, broiler
hen manure, corn
silage
Giarola et al. (2013) LP CP x x x Corn, poplar, willow, x Bioethanol, DDGS,
miscanthus, power
Corn stover, wheat
straw, barley straw,
switchgrass
Roni et al. (2014) LC x Corn Bioethanol
Li and Hu (2014) LPP, LP CPP, CP x Corn stover Bioethanol
Ren et al. (2013) x x Corn, cassava, wheat x Bioethanol
Yue et al. (2014) LPP, LP CPP, CP x x x x Corn stover Electricity
Wang et al. (2013) CP x Cellulosic biomass x Diesel, gasoline, power,
heat
Tong et al. (2013) LPP, LP CPP, CP x x x x Crop residues, energy x Gasoline, diesel
crops, wood, residues,
crude oil
Walther et al. (2012) LP CP x x x Logging residues, Biodiesel
straw, fast-growing
lumber
Kostin et al. (2012) CC, CP x x x x Sugarcane x Sugar, bioethanol
Zhang and Hu (2013) LP x x Corn stover Biofuel
Singh et al. (2014) LP CP Corn Bioethanol
Table 2 (Continued)

Ref. Facilities Biomass Final-product

Location Capacity Technology Sourcing Allocation Multi Feedstock Biomass type in case Multi Product Product types in case
studies studies

Natarajan et al. (2012) LP CP x x x Forest biomass, x Methanol, heat, power

sawmill residues
Srisuwan and Dumrongsiri (2012) x x x Cassava, sugarcane E20
Tittmann et al. (2010) LP CP x x x Multiple biomass types x Biofuel, heat, electricity
Tursun et al. (2008) LP CP x Corn Bioethanol
Wang et al. (2012) LP CP x Miscanthus x Heat, power
Zamboni et al. (2009a) LS, LP CP x x Corn Bioethanol
Ekşioğlu et al. (2010) LC, LP CC, CP x x x Corn x Bioethanol

H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Marufuzzaman et al. (2014b) LC, LP CC,CP x Biomass Biofuel
You and Wang (2012) LP CP x x x crop, energy crops, Bioethanol
wood residues
Bruglieri and Liberti (2006) LP x x Biomass x Biofuel
Corsano et al. (2011) LC, LP x Sugarcane x Sugar, ethanol, yeast
Čuček et al. (2012) x x corn, corn stover, wood x Heat, electricity,
chips, MSW (municipal bioethanol, DDGS
solid waste),
manure, timber
Singh et al. (2011) LC, LP CC, CP x Agricultural residue Power
Ayoub et al. (2007) LC, LP CC, CP Forestry residues Power
Celli et al. (2008) LP CP x Multiple types of x Biofuel, heat, power
agricultural biomass
Izquierdo et al. (2008) x x x Forest biomass, x Bio-oil, heat, power
non-forest biomass
(i.e., agricultural or
industrial residues)
López et al. (2008) LP x Forest residues Power
Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010) LP CP x x Wheat straw, x Heat, power
cornstalks, cotton
stalks, olive tree prun,
almond tree prun
Venema and Calamai (2003) LS, LP x Biomass Bioenergy
Vera et al. (2010) LP CP x Olive tree pruning Power
residues
Ma et al. (2005) LP Animal wastes Power
Rozakis et al. (2001) LP CP x Cynara or miscanthus Power
Shi et al. (2008) LP Forest residuals Power
Yue and You (2014) LP CP x x x Corn stover x Bioethanol
Tong et al. (2014b) LB x x x x Crop residues, wood x Gasoline, diesel, jet fuel
residues, energy crops
Akgul et al. (2012) LP CP x x Wheat, wheat straw Bioethanol
Sharma et al. (2013b) CS x x Switchgrass Bioethanol
Giarola et al. (2011b) CP x x Corn, stover x Bioethanol, DDGS,
power

979
 980
Table 2 (Continued)

Ref. Facilities Biomass Final-product

Location Capacity Technology Sourcing Allocation Multi Feedstock Biomass type in case Multi Product Product types in case
studies studies

Tong et al. (2014a)
Marvin et al. (2012)
Bai et al. (2012)
LPP, LP CPP, CP x x x x Crop residues (e.g. Corn x Gasoline, diesel, jet fuel
stover), energy crops
(e.g.
Switchgrass), wood
residues (e.g. Forest
residues), crude oil
LP CP x x x Corn, corn stover, x Bioethanol, biodiesel
forest biomass, wood
waste, energy crops
LP x Corn Bioethanol

H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Akgul et al. (2011) LP CP x x Wheat, miscanthus Bioethanol
Chinese and Meneghetti (2009) LP CP x Forest biomass Biofuel
Gebreslassie et al. (2012) LP CP x x x x Agricultural residues x Diesel, gasoline
(e.g., corn stover),
energy crops (e.g.,
switchgrass), wood
residues (e.g., urban
wood residues, primary
mills, forest residues)
Yue et al. (2013) LS, LPP, LP CPP, CP x x x x Crop residues, energy x Gasoline, diesel
crops,
And wood residues
Zhang et al. (2013) LPP, LP CP x x Switchgrass Bioethanol
Azadeh et al. (2014) LP CP x x x x Biomass x Biofuel
Elia et al. (2013) LP CP x x Hardwood biomass x Gasoline, diesel, jet fuel
An and Wilhelm (2014) LF CF x x x switchgrass, mill x Bioethanol
residues, and urban
wood wastes
Xie et al. (2014) LD, LP CP, CD x x Corn stover, forest Bioethanol
residues
Palak et al. (2014) x Woody biomass Bioethanol
Gong and You (2014) x x Algae x Biofuel, electricity
Grigoroudis et al. (2014) LC CC x x x Cardoon (cynara Power
cardunculus)
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014a) LPP CPP x Wastewater sludge Biodiesel
Natarajan et al. (2014) LP x x Energywood, x Biodiesel, heat, power
pulpwood, sawmill
residuals, wood
imports
Osmani and Zhang (2013) LP CS x x Switchgrass Bioethanol
Akgul et al. (2014) LP CP x x x Woody biomass Bioelectricity
Giarola et al. (2014) LF CS, CF x x x x Straw, woody residues Biofuel
Foo et al. (2013) LP Palm oil mills Heat, power
Ebadian et al. (2013) LC x Wheat straw Bioethanol
McLean and Li (2013) CS x x x x Wheat, corn,sugar x Bioethanol, heat,
beets power
Mansoornejad et al. (2013) x x x Forest biomass x Biodiesel, wax, jet fuel
-
Table 2 (Continued)

Ref. Facilities Biomass Final-product

Location Capacity Technology Sourcing Allocation Multi Feedstock Biomass type in case studies Multi Product Product types in case
studies

Cambero et al. (2015) LP x x x Forest residues (e.g., x Heat, electricity,

non-merchantable logs, pellets, pyrolysis
harvesting residues, sawdust bio-oil
and shavings,
and hog fuel)
Bairamzadeh et al. (2015) LP CS, CP x x x x Corn, wheat Bioethanol
Babazadeh et al. (2015) LS, LPP, LIP, LD, CS, CPP, CIP, CP, x x x JCL, WCO x Biodiesel, glycerin
LP CD
Bai et al. (2015) LP x Corn Bioethanol
Ren et al. (2015) x Corn Bioethanol
Gonela et al. (2015b) LC, LP CP x x x x Corn Bioethanol
Sharifzadeh et al. (2015) LP x Hardwood Gasoline, biodiesel
Murillo-Alvarado et al. (2015) LP CP x Residues of the tequila Bioethanol
Gonela et al. (2015a) LP CP x x x Corn, switchgrass x Bioethanol

H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Ahn et al. (2015) CP x x Microalgae Biodiesel
Paulo et al. (2015) LP CP x x Residual forest biomass Electricity
Paolucci et al. (2016) LS, LP CS, CP x x Miscanthus Power
Roni et al. (2016) LP CP Cellulosic biomass Bioethanol
Mohseni et al. (2016) LP CP x Microalgae Biodiesel
Babazadeh et al. (2016) LS, LC, LPP, LD, CS, CC, CPP, CP, x x x JCL, UCO x Biodiesel, glycerin
LP CD
Duarte et al. (2016) LP x Coffee cut stem Bioethanol
Hombach et al. (2016) LP x x x Forest residues, agricultural Biodiesel
residues/straw, sawmill
waste
And miscanthus
Ng and Maravelias (2016) LS, LPP, LP CPP, CP x x x Corn stover, switchgrass bioethanol
Woo et al. (2016) x x x x Agricultural residues, Hydrogen
industrial residues, forestry
residues
Balaman and Selim (2016) LC, LP CC, CP x x x Animal manure, energy crops Thermal energy
d’Amore and Bezzo (2016) LP CP x x Corn, stover x Bioethanol, DDGS,
power
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016) CP x x x Wood chips, wood. Sugar x Bioethanol, biodiesel
cane, corn grain, sorghum
grain, African palm, jatropha,
safflower
Azadeh and Arani (2016) LP x x x Soybean Biodiesel
Miret et al. (2016) LC, LP CC, CP x x x x Corn, wood Bioethanol
Poudel et al. (2016) LC, LP CC, CP x x Corn stover, forest residues Bioethanol
Cambero et al. (2016) x x x Forest biomass residues x Heat, electricity,
bio-oil, pellets
Bai et al. (2016) LP x Corn Bioethanol
Yue et al. (2016) LP CP x x x x Wheat, wheat straw, Bioethanol
miscanthus, woody biomass
Zhang et al. (2016) LC, LP CP x x Pulpwood Bioethanol
Cambero and Sowlati (2016) x x x Unused forest, wood residues x Electricity, heat,
bio-oil, pellets
Lim and Lam (2016) x x Corn cob, pinewood, treated x Power, bioethanol,
wood, hazelnut shell, tomato hydrogen
residue, cauliflower residue
De Meyer et al. (2016) x x x x Mesotrophic grass x Heat, electricity

LS: location of supply site; CS: capacity of supply site; LC: location of collection site; CC: capacity of collection site; LPP: location of preprocessing site; CPP: capacity of preprocessing site; LP: location of processing site; CP:
capacity of processing site; LIP: location of intermediate processing site; CIP: capacity of intermediate processing site; LB: location of blending site; CB: capacity of blending site; LD: location of distribution site; CD: capacity of

981
distribution site; LF: location of facilities, CF: capacity of facilities.
982 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Fig. 3. Main classification of biomass supply chain network design models.

Fig. 4. Distribution of facility-related strategic decisions in the publications.

Multi-feedstock Single-feedstock
14 13
12 12
12 11

10
8
8 7 7 7 7
7 6
6 5 7
6
5 5
4 3 3
2 2 2
2
2 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 1
0 0 0 1
0 0
0

Fig. 5. Single-feedstock and multi-feedstock models in different years.

4.1.3. Final product-related strategic decisions
In the third part of Table 2, the BSC final products have been
studied in terms of their types and number. An investigation of
the selected papers shows that more than 40% of the developed
models are multi-product, but only about 36% of the case stud-
ies are related to multi-product BSCs. Fig. 6 shows the application
trend of the single and multi-product models in different years.
The computational complexities associated with multi-feedstock
and multi-product models can be accounted for their low appli-
cability. An investigation of the biofuels in Table 3 shows that
researches on BSCND with second-generation biofuels are increas-
ing. As mentioned earlier, concern regarding the production of the

Table 3
Publications based on biomass feedstock, final product and its generation.
Final product and its
generation
First generation bioethanol,
biodiesel, heat and power
First generation biodiesel, heat
and power
Second generation biodiesel,
heat and power
Third generation biodiesel,
heat and power
Not determined
first generation biofuels, due to their foodstuff consumption, is the
main reason for the increasing interest of researchers on studying
the second-generation biofuels.
4.2. Modeling approaches
In this section, different modeling approaches used in BSCND
are evaluated and analyzed in an integrated framework. After eval-
uating the selected papers, the used modeling approaches are
H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 983
Biomass feedstock Ref.
Starch and sugar based Morrow et al. (2006); Dal-Mas et al. (2011); Mas et al. (2010); Giarola et al. (2011a,
2011b, 2012, 2013); Mele et al. (2011); Kostin et al. (2012); Roni et al. (2014); Singh
et al. (2014); Srisuwan and Dumrongsiri (2012); Zamboni et al. (2009a, 2009b);
Corsano et al. (2011); Bai et al. (2011, 2012, 2015, 2016); Xie et al. (2014); McLean and
Li (2013); Lam et al. (2011); Ren et al. (2013, 2015); Tursun et al. (2008); Ekşioğlu et al.
(2010); Marvin et al. (2012); Akgul et al. (2010, 2011, 2012); Čuček et al. (2010, 2012);
Bairamzadeh et al. (2015); Gonela et al. (2015a, 2015b); d’Amore and Bezzo (2016);
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016); Miret et al. (2016); Yue et al. (2016)
Agricultural residues and Nagel (2000); Vlachos et al. (2008); Čuček et al. (2010); Alex Marvin et al. (2012); You
livestock products et al. (2012); Zhu and Yao (2011); Avami (2012); Aksoy et al. (2011); Zhang and Hu
(2013); Singh et al. (2011); Ma et al. (2005); Tong et al. (2013, 2014a, 2014b);Giarola
et al. (2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2013); Ebadian et al. (2013); Mapemba et al. (2008);
Rentizelas et al. (2009a); Ekşioğlu et al. (2009); Huang et al. (2010); Bai et al. (2011);
You and Wang (2011, 2012); Perpina et al. (2009); Dunnett et al. (2008); Parker et al.
(2010); Li and Hu (2014); Yue et al. (2013, 2014, 2016); Walther et al. (2012);
Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010); Celli et al. (2008); Izquierdo et al. (2008); Vera
et al. (2010); Yue and You (2014); Marvin et al. (2012); Akgul et al. (2012);
Gebreslassie et al. (2012); Čuček et al. (2012); Murillo-Alvarado et al. (2015);
Hombach et al. (2016); Ng and Maravelias (2016); Woo et al. (2016); Balaman and
Selim (2016); d’Amore and Bezzo (2016); Poudel et al. (2016); Lim and Lam (2016)
Urban and industrial woody You et al. (2012); Aksoy et al. (2011); Natarajan et al. (2012, 2014); Balaman and Selim
wastes and landfills (2014); Ekşioğlu et al. (2009); An et al. (2011); Aksoy et al. (2011); You and Wang
(2011, 2012); Chen and Fan (2012); Frombo et al. (2009a); Perpina et al. (2009);
Kanzian et al. (2009); Leduc et al. (2008); Parker et al. (2010); Tong et al. (2013);
Izquierdo et al. (2008); Marvin et al. (2012); Gebreslassie et al. (2012); Yue et al.
(2013); Akgul et al. (2014); Čuček et al. (2012); Marufuzzaman et al. (2014a);
Babazadeh et al. (2016); Duarte et al. (2016); Woo et al. (2016); Cambero and Sowlati
(2016); Lim and Lam (2016)
Forest biomass Mapemba et al. (2007); Nagel (2000); Freppaz et al. (2004); Gunnarsson et al. (2004);
Frombo et al. (2009a, 2009b); Panichelli and Gnansounou (2008); Aksoy et al. (2011);
Leduc et al. (2010); Čuček et al. (2010); Natarajan et al. (2012, 2014); Elia et al. (2013);
Palak et al. (2014); Mansoornejad et al. (2013); Ekşioğlu et al. (2009); Huang et al.
(2010); Kim et al. (2010, 2011a,b); Kanzian et al. (2009); Parker et al. (2010); Leduc
et al. (2008); Tong et al. (2013, 2014a, 2014b); Walther et al. (2012); Ayoub et al.
(2007); Izquierdo et al. (2008); López et al. (2008); Shi et al. (2008); Marvin et al.
(2012); Chinese and Meneghetti (2009); Gebreslassie et al. (2012); Yue et al. (2013);
Akgul et al. (2014); Čuček et al. (2012); Cambero et al. (2015); Sharifzadeh et al.
(2015); Paulo et al. (2015); Hombach et al. (2016); Woo et al. (2016);
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016); Miret et al. (2016); Poudel et al. (2016); Cambero
et al. (2016); Zhang et al. (2016); Lim and Lam (2016)
Herbaceous energy crops Cundiff et al. (1997); Morrow et al. (2006); Dunnett et al. (2007); Grigoroudis et al.
(2014); Zhu et al. (2011); You et al. (2012); Zhu and Yao (2011); Wang et al. (2012);
Rozakis et al. (2001); Zhang et al. (2013); Osmani and Zhang (2013); Mapemba et al.
(2008); An et al. (2011); Bai et al. (2011); Giarola et al. (2012, 2013); You and Wang
(2011, 2012); Sharma et al. (2013b); Tong et al. (2014a); Akgul et al. (2011);
Gebreslassie et al. (2012); Gonela et al. (2015a); Paolucci et al. (2016); Roni et al.
(2016); Hombach et al. (2016); Ng and Maravelias (2016); Balaman and Selim (2016);
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016); Yue et al. (2016); De Meyer et al. (2016)
Short rotation woody crops Walther et al. (2012); Tatsiopoulos and Tolis (2003); Rentizelas et al. (2009a); Huang
et al. (2010); Avami (2012); Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010)
Oily crops Andersen et al. (2012); Bowling et al. (2011); Leão et al. (2011); Foo et al. (2013);
Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010); Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016); Azadeh and
Arani (2016)
Energy crops Andersen et al. (2012); Leduc et al. (2009); Srisuwan and Dumrongsiri (2012); Parker
et al. (2010); Ren et al. (2013); Wang et al. (2013); Tong et al. (2013); Marvin et al.
(2012); Yue et al. (2013); Tong et al. (2014b); Babazadeh et al. (2015); Babazadeh et al.
(2016); Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016)
algae Gong and You (2014); Ahn et al. (2015); Mohseni et al. (2016)
biomass Mol et al. (1997); Tembo et al. (2003); Bai et al. (2011); Tittmann et al. (2010);
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014b); Bruglieri and Liberti (2006); Venema and Calamai
(2003); Azadeh et al. (2014); An and Wilhelm (2014); Giarola et al. (2014)
classified in three main categories including mathematical pro-
gramming, multi-criteria decision making, as well as heuristic and
meta-heuristic approaches. It is worth noting that these classes
may have overlaps; for instance, a paper with mathematical pro-
gramming approach can be a multi-criteria decision making model
too. Fig. 7 shows the distribution of different modeling approaches
used in BSCND in different years. According to these results, the
mathematical programming, with 92.5% usage, is the most applied
approach in BSCND models. Again, in spite of the fact that the real
984 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Multi-product Single-product
16
14
14
12
12
10 10
10
8 8 8
8 7 7 7 7
6 6 6
6
5
3 4 3 3
4
2 2
2 1 1 1 1 1
0 0 0 1 0
0 0 0 0
0

Fig. 6. Single-product and multi-product models in different years.

35
1
30

25 1 10
1 2 6
20 0
4 3
4
1 0 4
15 2 2 3
2
2
2
10 1 2 0
1
1 1 17
3
15 15 10 15
1
5 7 9
9
1 5
01 011 0 01 1
0 1 01 10 1 2 01 1 2 1 2 2 1 1
0 0 0 0

Linear programming Mixed integer linear programming

Mixed integer non-linear programming Non-linear programming
MCDM Heurisic and meta-heuristic approches

Fig. 7. Various modeling approaches in different years.

world problems are often complicated and cannot be modeled by
linear methods, with 88.1% usage, linear approach is the dominat-
ing approach in BSCND models. Notably, only 11.8% of the published
papers propose nonlinear models for BSCND. Therefore, it is sug-
gested that the modeling approaches that conform better to reality
be used in the future studies. Next, each modeling approach will be
evaluated and analyzed based on different features such as objec-
tive function type (see Table 4), the number of objective functions,
the number of time periods, sustainability, uncertainty, uncertain
factor, and solution method.
4.2.1. Mathematical programming approach
Mathematical programming models include an objective func-
tion, constraints, and decision variables. They are applied to obtain
the optimum value for the objective function and decision vari-
ables while satisfying all the constraints (Winston and Goldberg,
2004). Considering the objective function, decision variables, and
constraints, the mathematical programming models used in the
selected papers include linear, nonlinear, mixed integer linear, and
mixed integer nonlinear programming models. As shown in Fig. 7,
the mixed integer linear programming (MILP) models are the most
widely used one in the literature.
4.2.1.1. Linear programming. Linear programming (LP) is a specific
type of mathematical programming methods wherein the objective
function and the constraints are both linear. It is worth mentioning
that linear models constitute 7.4% of the mathematical and 6.8%
of all types of modeling approaches in BSCND. Table 5 shows the
evaluation of the papers wherein linear programming models are
developed. All the linear BSCND models are single-objective and
ignore the issue of sustainability.
Facility location optimization highly reduces the transporta-
tion costs in the BSC. As a powerful tool, Geographical Information
Systems (GIS) can help to determine the appropriate location of
the facilities in a specific area through integrating the informa-
tion of different factors (population and the main and secondary
routes of the supply chain). Panichelli and Gnansounou (2008)
presented a GIS-based approach that is able to determine the opti-
mal location of the processing sites and the optimum allocation
of biomass based on marginal delivery costs and resource compe-
tition between facilities when there is a high price-variability of
biomass. In this approach, the biomass allocation is done through
BIOAL wherein use is made of Dijkstra algorithm to find the shortest
route between the harvesting and processing sites.
Frombo et al. (2009a) presented a GIS-based Environmental
Decision Support System (EDSS) for an optimal logistics strategic
planning to produce energy from woody biomass. The proposed
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 985

Table 4 tion of strategic variables such as the location and capacity of the
Objective function coding and classification.
biorefineries with the objective of reducing the total supply chain
Objective function class Code Objective function costs. Morrow et al. (2006) proposed a linear programming model
Economic 1 Minimize (total) costs to determine the optimal locations of the biorefineries in a supply
2 Maximize (total) profit. chain that produces bioethanol from switchgrass and corn in the
3 Maximize net present value United States.
4 Maximize financial revenue Ren et al. (2013) proposed a model for the design of sustain-
5 Minimize risk on investment.
able bioethanol supply chain wherein multiple biomass feedstocks,
6 Minimize transportation cost
8 Minimize Logistics cost of production technologies, transportation modes and patterns, and
biomass collection disposal methods are all possible. There are certain constraints in
15 Minimize transport distance this model that affect the objective function. Notably, the objective
16 Minimize unit cost
function aims to minimize the total ecological footprint.
17 Maximize economic potential
18 Minimize conditional Uncertainty is an important challenge in the development of
value-at-risk BSCs (Awudu and Zhang, 2012). Considering uncertainty in the
19 Maximize efficiencies level of biomass production due to varying climatic conditions in
20 Minimize marginal delivery different periods of growth and harvesting, Cundiff et al. (1997) pro-
cost
posed a scenario-based multi-period linear programming model
Environmental 7 Minimize greenhouse gas to determine the capacity of the collection sites in a herbaceous
emissions
biomass delivery system. Sharma et al. (2013b) also proposed a
9 Maximize the total greenhouse
gas emission savings
scenario-based multi-period linear programming model to opti-
11 Maximize net energy output mize the design of a biofuel supply chain under uncertain climatic
12 Minimize environmental conditions.
impact
13 Minimize global warming
potential
4.2.1.2. Mixed integer linear programming. Similar to LP models, the
MILP models have linear objective functions and constraints with
Social 10 Maximize the number job
this difference that in the latter, all or some of the decision vari-
opportunities
14 Minimize social impact
ables are integers. MILP models are useful tools for the solution
21 Minimize number of workers of problems wherein integer variables are necessary because of
22 Maximize total service level the presence of discrete phenomena. Out of 146 papers reviewed,
109 papers (74.6%) had made use of MILP models. Therefore, MILP
is a modeling technique used most widely in BSCND problems.
EDSS has three main levels including GIS, database, and optimiza- Table 6 shows the evaluation results of MILP models used in
tion (at strategic, tactical, and operational levels). This system is BSCND problems from different aspects. Facility location decision
able to optimize the decision variables of the biorefinery capacity is an important reason for using MILP models since the related
and the annual biomass harvesting based on minimization of the binary decision variables can appropriately model establishment
total costs. of facilities in different capacities and production technologies.
Since harvesting and processing sites are far apart and biomass Since BSCND affects biomass logistics, decision makers determine
is scattered in a vast area, its procurement is costly (Möller and optimal BSCND and optimum material flow between facilities
Nielsen, 2007). Different algorithms (e.g. Dijkstra) are proposed simultaneously (Vlachos et al., 2008). Accordingly, the continuous
in the literature to determine the shortest distance between the variables of MILP are used to show the material flow between facil-
biomass harvesting and processing sites. Using Dijkstra-based ities (Bowling et al., 2011; De Meyer et al., 2014; Vlachos et al.,
GIS and focusing on the transportation and logistics strategies, 2008). Optimization, in these models, is done either under eco-
Perpina et al. (2009) developed a methodology capable of locat- nomic, environmental, or social objectives (De Meyer et al., 2014),
ing a network of processing sites around a region. Tatsiopoulos and or in some cases, the economic, environmental, and social aspects
Tolis (2003) developed a multi-period linear programming model are optimized simultaneously (You et al., 2012; Yue et al., 2014).
wherein they investigated the possibility of generating heat and MILP models have been used in different problems. Mol et al.
electricity from chopped cotton-plant stalks through the optimiza- (1997) proposed an MILP model for BSCND wherein optimum loca-

Table 5
Publications applying linear programming with identification of different characteristics.

Ref. Objective Multi period Multi Objective Sustainability Uncertainty Uncertain Factor Solution method

Cundiff et al. (1997) 1 x x Production levels of biomass CS

Tatsiopoulos and Tolis (2003)
Morrow et al. (2006)
Frombo et al. (2009a)
Panichelli and Gnansounou (2008)
Perpina et al. (2009)
Ren et al. (2013)
Sharma et al. (2013b)
Ren et al. (2015)
Lim and Lam (2016)
1 x CS
6 CS
1 CS
20 CS
6 CS
12 CS
1 x x Number of harvesting workdays CS
1 x Costs, prices, the consumed CS
transportation fuel, demand of
markets, the used fuel, the
used electricity, the quantity of
seed, fertilizer, pesticide and
herbicide, the used human
labor, velocity of the vehicle,
yield of grain
2 CS
986 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Table 6
Publications applying mixed integer linear programming with identification of different characteristics.

Ref. Objective Multi period Multi objective Sustainability Uncertainty Non-deterministic parameters Solution method

Mol et al. (1997) 8 EA

Nagel (2000) 1 CS
Tembo et al. (2003) 3 x CS
Freppaz et al. (2004) 1 CS
Gunnarsson et al. (2004) 1 x CS
Mapemba et al. (2007) 3 x CS
Dunnett et al. (2007) 1 x CS
Mapemba et al. (2008) 3 x CS
Vlachos et al. (2008) 1 CS
Frombo et al. (2009b) 1 CS
Zamboni et al. (2009b) 1 x CS
Ekşioğlu et al. (2009) 1 x CS
Huang et al. (2010) 1 x CS
Akgul et al. (2010) 1 CS
Kim et al. (2010) 2 CS
Dal-Mas et al. (2011) 3 x x Biomass price CS
Zhu et al. (2011) 2 x CS
Alex Marvin et al. (2012) 3 CS
An et al. (2011) 2 x CS
You et al. (2012) 1,7,10 x x x CS
You and Wang (2011) 1,7 x x CS
Lam et al. (2011) 2 CS
Zhu and Yao (2011) 2 CS
Kim et al. (2011a) 2 x Supply amounts, market CS
demands, market prices,
processing technologies
Chen and Fan (2012) 1 x Feedstock supply, biofuel HMA
demand
Aksoy et al. (2011) 6 CS
Andersen et al. (2012) 3 x CS
Bowling et al. (2011) 2 CS
Mas et al. (2010) 2,5 x x x Biofuel price CS
Leão et al. (2011) 1 x CS
Dunnett et al. (2008) 1 CS
Giarola et al. (2011a) 3,12 x x CS
Kanzian et al. (2009) 6 CS
Kim et al. (2011b) 2 x Biomass availability, biofuel CS
demand, price
Čuček et al. (2010) 7 CS
Leduc et al. (2008) 1 CS
Leduc et al. (2009) 1 CS
Leduc et al. (2010) 1 CS
Mele et al. (2011) 3,12 x x CS
Parker et al. (2010) 2 CS
Giarola et al. (2012) 3 x x Feedstock cost, carbon cost CS
Avami (2012) 1 x CS
Balaman and Selim (2014) 2 CS
Giarola et al. (2013) 3,12 x x x Raw materials, carbon CS
allowances trading cost
volatility
Roni et al. (2014) 1 EA
Li and Hu (2014) 2 x Biomass availability, CS
technology advancement,
biofuel prices
Yue et al. (2014) 1,7,10 x x x EA
Tong et al. (2013) 1 x x Biomass availability, fuel CS
demand, crude oil prices,
technology evolution
Walther et al. (2012) 3 x x Biomass production, CS
investment cost, biofuel
demand
Kostin et al. (2012) 3 x x Biofuel demand HMA
Zhang and Hu (2013) 1 x CS
Natarajan et al. (2012) 1 CS
Srisuwan and Dumrongsiri (2012) 2 x CS
Tittmann et al. (2010) 2 CS
Tursun et al. (2008) 1 CS
Wang et al. (2012) 1 x CS
Zamboni et al. (2009a) 1,7 x CS
Ekşioğlu et al. (2010) 1 x CS
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014b) 1 EA
You and Wang (2012) 1,7 x x CS
Tong et al. (2014b) 1,16 x x Supply, demand CS
Giarola et al. (2011b) 3,7 x x CS
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 987

Table 6 (Continued)

Ref. Objective Multi period Multi objective Sustainability Uncertainty Non-deterministic parameters Solution method

Tong et al. (2014a) 1 x x Biomass availability, product CS

demand
Marvin et al. (2012) 3 x CS
Akgul et al. (2011) 1 CS
Akgul et al. (2012) 3 x CS
Chinese and Meneghetti (2009) 1 CS
Gebreslassie et al. (2012) 1,18 x x x Supply, demand CS
Zhang et al. (2013) 1 x CS
Azadeh et al. (2014) 2 x x Supply, demand CS
Elia et al. (2013) 1 CS
An and Wilhelm (2014) 2 x EA
Xie et al. (2014) 1 x CS
Palak et al. (2014) 1 x CS
Grigoroudis et al. (2014) 1,19 x CS
Osmani and Zhang (2013) 1 x Biomass yield, biomass price, CS
bioethanol price, rainfall level
Giarola et al. (2014) 1 x CS
Foo et al. (2013) 7 x Biomass supply CS
Ebadian et al. (2013) 1 x CS
McLean and Li (2013) 2 x x Amount of required crops, CS
yield of crops, lower and upper
demand limits for electricity
Mansoornejad et al. (2013) 2 x CS
Natarajan et al. (2014) 1 CS
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014a) 1,7 x x CS
Cambero et al. (2015) 3 x CS
Bairamzadeh et al. (2015) 2,10,12 x x x x Feedstock and bioethanol CS
selling prices; unit
environmental impact of
biomass production, biofuel
production, and transportation
Babazadeh et al. (2015) 1 x CS
Murillo-Alvarado et al. (2015) 2,12 x x CS
Gonela et al. (2015a) 2 x x Selling price and demand of CS
bioethanol, yield rate of 1st and
2nd generation biomass
Ahn et al. (2015) 1 x CS
Sharifzadeh et al. (2015) 3 x x Raw material availability, CS
biofuel demand
Gonela et al. (2015a) 2 x x Bioethanol price, bioethanol HMA
demand, biomass yield
Paulo et al. (2015) 1 x CS
Paolucci et al. (2016) 3,7 x x CS
Roni et al. (2016) 1,7,10 x x CS
Azadeh and Arani (2016) 2 x x Available biomass, demand CS
Duarte et al. (2016) 2 x CS
De Meyer et al. (2016) 11 x CS
Miret et al. (2016) 1,10,12 x x x CS
Ng and Maravelias (2016) 1 x CS
Cambero et al. (2016) 3,9 x x CS
Cambero and Sowlati (2016) 3,10,9 x x x CS
Yue et al. (2016) 1,7 x CS
Zhang et al. (2016) 1 x CS
Mohseni et al. (2016) 1 x x Resource supply, cost CS
parameters,
Critical technical factors,
biodiesel demand
Hombach et al. (2016) 3 x CS
Woo et al. (2016) 1 x CS
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016) 2,12 x x x Raw material price CS
d’Amore and Bezzo (2016) 3,7 x x CS
Balaman and Selim (2016) 1,22 x x x Unit cost of thermal energy CS
storage,
Upper capacity limit of thermal
energy storage, thermal energy
demand per household

tions of the processing sites are determined through minimizing
the logistic costs of collecting biomass. Nagel (2000) proposed an
MILP model that is able to find the most economic and ecological
structure for supplying biomass through the dynamic evaluation
of the economic performance and efficiency. MILP models with
the objective function of cost minimization are used in different
problems including the evaluation of generating heat and elec-
trical energy from biomass at the regional level (Freppaz et al.,
2004); design and scheduling of supply chain processes to generate
heat from biomass (Dunnett et al., 2007); design and evaluation of
waste biomass sustainable supply chains (Vlachos et al., 2008); the
strategic planning of bioethanol supply chain systems (Huang et al.,
2010); optimal design of bioethanol supply chains together with
determining the optimum harvesting and bioethanol production
988 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000
rates (Akgul et al., 2010); and BSC strategic planning and optimum
allocation of feedstock under uncertain location decisions (Chen
and Fan, 2012).
As mentioned in the previous section, GIS, as a powerful tool,
can be used in facility location and BSCND. Geijzendorffer et al.
(2008) combined GIS and MILP to calculate the expected value of
the biomass supply and the transportation distance. In addition to
facility location, GIS can be used, considering different factors, in
selecting the optimal route for the feedstock flow between facili-
ties. To achieve this, firstly the most inexpensive routes between
different facilities are found through the GIS (Fernando et al., 2015;
Frombo et al., 2009b; Parker et al., 2010; Tittmann et al., 2010), and
then the results are used in the MILP model for BSCND.
Various objectives are used in BSCND models. Table 4 shows
different economic, environmental, and social objective functions
used in BSCND models. Although all of them affect BSCND deci-
sions, most MILP models have considered only the economic aspect.
In the meantime, some authors have focused on the environmen-
tal optimization. For example, Lam et al. (2010) presented a new
method for regional energy clustering and Foo et al. (2013) pro-
posed some robust models for the synthesis of empty fruit bunch
allocation networks in the regional BSC to generate energy from
palm oil. The only objective in both models is the minimization
of greenhouse gas emissions. Economic and environmental objec-
tives usually are modeled by minimizing the total supply chain
costs and greenhouse gas emissions in most of MILP models (You
and Wang, 2011, 2012; Zamboni et al., 2009a,b). The maximization
of net present value and minimization of environmental impacts
(Giarola et al., 2013; Mele et al., 2011) are also considered as the
economic and environmental objectives in MILP models. A small
number of papers consider all the three aspects of sustainability in
BSCND problems. You et al. (2012) and Yue et al. (2014) proposed
multi-objective MILP models which consider cost minimization,
greenhouse gas emission minimization, and job opportunity max-
imization as objective functions. Results of the present study show
that among the MILP models, the 83 (76%) single-objective and
26 (24%) multi-objective models are developed in the literature,
respectively.
In the real world problems, sometimes all or a number of param-
eters undergo some changes over time according to a foreseeable
trend. Therefore, it is necessary to consider such dynamism in
problem parameters since it can significantly affect the planning
decisions. In such cases, the time horizon is divided into sev-
eral periods, and a multi-period model is used to conform to the
dynamic changes (Melo et al., 2009). This means that some deci-
sions related to the location and capacity of the facilities as well
as the biomass and biofuel flows are to be made for each period.
The investigation results on MILP models show that out of 109
papers, 68 (62.38%) have developed multi-period BSCND models.
The binary variables in a multi-period MILP model in BSCND show
either a facility is open or closed and in most of the cases are inde-
pendent from the time periods (De Meyer et al., 2014). Giarola et al.
(2011a) have presented a multi-objective multi-period model for
the design and planning of a bioethanol supply chain considering
both first and second generation biorefineries. The capacity and
technology of facilities are strategic decisions that can vary in dif-
ferent time periods. Mele et al. (2011) presented a multi-period
MILP model for the design of a synthetic sugar-bioethanol supply
chain which considers both economic and environmental objec-
tives. In this model, the number and capacity of collection sites and
biorefineries are the main decisions which should be determined
for each time period.
Uncertainty is an important factor which can significantly
influence the performance of BSC. Uncertainties in the biomass
feedstock supply, biofuel demand, bioenergy production, price,
logistics, and transportation are common instances of uncertainty
in the BSCND models (Awudu and Zhang, 2012); however, there
are other sources of uncertainty which can be considered in BSCND
models. In this regard, Dal-Mas et al. (2011) proposed a stochastic
dynamic MILP model for the design and planning of multi-echelon
biofuel supply chains under market uncertainty. Giarola et al.
(2012) also proposed a multi-echelon, multi-period MILP model
for the design of a bioethanol supply chain considering biomass
and carbon market uncertainties.
Giarola et al. (2013) considered market uncertainties in a
risk constrained multi-objective stochastic MILP model in order
to determine the strategic planning decisions and design of a
bioethanol supply chain. proposed a two-stage, mixed integer
stochastic programming model to find the optimal design of BSC in
the southeastern region of the United States wherein the biomass
supply, market demand, market price, and the production technol-
ogy vary in different scenarios. In this model, the production sites’
strategic variables (location and capacity) are optimized in the first
stage and, in the second stage, the optimum values of biomass feed-
stock and biofuel flow rates are determined. In the mixed integer
stochastic programming model presented by Chen and Fan (2012),
the strategic planning and feedstock allocation decisions of bioen-
ergy supply chain systems are associated with uncertainties in the
biomass supply and bioethanol demand. Kim et al. (2011b) pro-
posed a scenario-based robust MILP model for the biofuel supply
chain design problem under varying demand conditions that could
specify the optimum value of the feedstock flow between differ-
ent supply chain facilities as well as the optimum values of the
biorefinery-related strategic variables (location and capacity). In
order to design a second generation synthetic biodiesel supply
chain, Walther et al. (2012) proposed a multi-period, scenario-
based MILP model which determines the optimal values of the
location, capacity, and production technology decisions.
Considering uncertainties in the biomass supply and biofuel
demand as the functions of price, Azadeh et al. (2014) pro-
posed a dynamic, stochastic MILP model for the multi-product
BSCND wherein both the market and disruption risks are taken
into account. Considering uncertainties in supply and demand,
Gebreslassie et al. (2012) also proposed a multi-period, stochas-
tic MILP model for the optimal design of a hydrocarbon biorefinery
supply chain that is able to simultaneously minimize annual costs
and financial risks. Design and planning of the hydrocarbon biofuel
supply chain has been studied by Tong et al. (2014b) too. Kostin
et al. (2012) carried out the strategic design and planning of the
sugar and ethanol supply chain by presenting a stochastic MILP
model under demand uncertainty. Tong et al. (2013) proposed a
multi-period, stochastic MILP model to cope with uncertainty and
dynamism of biomass availability, biofuel price, crude oil demand,
and production technology. Advanced biofuel supply chains mini-
mize the biomass transportation costs, and they have the advantage
of economies to scale for the bio-oil gasification facilities. In this
regard, Li and Hu (2014) proposed a two-stage stochastic MILP
based on bio-oil gasification wherein they assumed such factors
as biomass availability, technology advancement, and biofuel price
as uncertain parameters.
A comprehensive review of the literature shows that uncer-
tainty has been considered in some of BSCND models by the
authors; however, most of them have employed stochastic pro-
gramming to deal with uncertainty. Notably, in many real-life
problems, the uncertainty could not be modeled by probability
distributions and the use of stochastic programming is con-
fronted with significant difficulties according to lack of knowledge
and historical data about uncertain parameters. To overcome
these obstacles, a number of studies have been done which
have employed fuzzy mathematical programming approach. Tong
et al. (2014a) proposed a multi-period MILP model for designing
an advanced hydrocarbon biofuel supply chain integrated with
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000
existing petroleum refineries. In order to deal with uncertain
parameters, they presented a possibilistic programming approach
in which possibility, necessity and credibility measures are applied
based on decision makers’ preferences. Bairamzadeh et al. (2015)
developed a multi-objective MILP model for the design of a sus-
tainable bioethanol supply chain under multiple uncertainties.
Moreover, they developed a novel multi-objective robust possi-
bilistic programming approach to account for the data uncertainty
of the problem.
4.2.1.3. Non-linear programming models. Non-linear programming
(NLP) models are special types of mathematical programming mod-
els that have non-linear constraints and/or objective functions.
Depending on the presence or absence of integer variables, the
model is either of the mixed integer non-linear programming
(MINLP) type, or simply of the non-linear programming type. Out
of 146 papers, 14 papers (9.59%) proposed non-linear program-
ming models including 13MINLP and 1 NLP models. Since real
world problems are complicated, linear modeling is not applicable
in many cases. On the other hand, the complexities of non-linear
models and the simplicity of the linear ones encourage researchers
to develop the latter in different problems.
As shown in Table 7, most non-linear models (Bai et al., 2011,
2012, 2015, 2016; Singh et al., 2011, 2014; Marufuzzaman et al.,
2014a; Yue and You, 2014; Corsano et al., 2011; Bruglieri and
Liberti, 2006; Poudel et al., 2016) have only economic objective
functions. Some other research works such as (Wang et al., 2013;
Yue et al., 2013; Akgul et al., 2014; Gong and You, 2014; Babazadeh
et al., 2016) consider the environmental and economic optimiza-
tion simultaneously. The work by (Čuček et al., 2012) is the only
non-linear model which considers all the three sustainability pillars
including economic, environmental, and social objective simulta-
neously. Among the MINLP and NLP models (Singh et al., 2014;
Babazadeh et al., 2016) consider multiple time periods in their mod-
els. In order to handle the data uncertainty, Babazadeh et al. (2016)
developed a multi-objective possibilistic programming model to
design a second generation biodiesel supply chain under risk. In
this paper, by defining the possibilistic mean and absolute deviation
of fuzzy numbers, a new formulation of possibilistic programming
method is developed.
4.2.2. Multi-criteria decision making
Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) models usually deal
with conflicting objectives or attributes in a decision making prob-
lem. These models are either Multi-Attribute Decision Making
(MADM) or Multi-Objective Decision Making (MODM). In the for-
mer, the selection of one from among the existing choices is
considered. In general, MADM includes such specific decisions (of
preferential type) as evaluation, prioritization, or selection from
among the existing choices under conflicting criteria (Malczewski,
1999; Wang et al., 2009). Table 8 shows the evaluation of MCDM
models used for BSCND. As an unparalleled and dynamic technol-
ogy, and with the objective of optimal management of spatial data,
GIS is being widely used by the users of different sciences and
technologies. Combining GIS capabilities (in data collection, stor-
age, retrieval, and analysis) with those of MCDM, can affect the
conversion of geographical data and decision makers’ preferences
to unidimensional values of different alternatives and enhance
their ranking (Malczewski, 1999). In this regard, Ma et al. (2005)
proposed a GIS model wherein the evaluation of the land appropri-
ateness and the determination of optimal locations for the potential
bioenergy production sites are done according to social and envi-
ronmental constraints and economic factors. In this model, the
analytic hierarchy process is used to determine the factors’ weights
in the first stage and selecting the most appropriate locations in
the second stage. Using GIS, Shi et al. (2008) proposed a supply
989
area modeling approach to evaluate the possibility of building new
biomass power plants and determining their optimal locations in a
supply chain located in Guangdong, China. Grigoroudis et al. (2014)
proposed a recursive DEA model wherein facility selection is done
based on the minimum cost and maximum efficiency.
In MODM models, several objectives are simultaneously taken
into account within a mathematical programming model. The eval-
uation criterion for an objective might be quite different from those
of the others and it is also possible that the objectives may be
conflicting. In BSCND models, these objectives include the com-
bination of two economic objectives (Gebreslassie et al., 2012;
Mas et al., 2010; Tong et al., 2014b), or the combination of eco-
nomic and environmental objectives (You and Wang, 2011, 2012;
Giarola et al., 2011a,b, 2013; Rozakis et al., 2001; Akgul et al.,
2014; Yue et al., 2013, 2016; Mele et al., 2011; Zamboni et al.,
2009a; Wang et al., 2013; Gong and You, 2014; Marufuzzaman et al.,
2014a; Murillo-Alvarado et al., 2015; Paolucci et al., 2016; Cambero
et al., 2016; Santibañez-Aguilar et al., 2016; d’Amore and Bezzo,
2016; Babazadeh et al., 2016), or the combination of economic and
social objectives (Balaman and Selim, 2016), or the combination of
economic, environmental, and social objectives (You et al., 2012;
Ayoub et al., 2007; Yue et al., 2014; Čuček et al., 2012; Bairamzadeh
et al., 2015; Roni et al., 2016; Miret et al., 2016; Cambero and
Sowlati, 2016). These results show that in MCDM models developed
for BSCND, the researchers have focused mainly on the economic
and environmental aspects and only a little part of the literature
covers all the aspects of sustainability (only 8 papers out of 35,
22.86%). An investigation of MCDM models reveals that 20 papers
(57.14%) considered multiple time periods and 8 papers (22.86%)
used stochastic programming models to deal with uncertainty.
4.2.3. Heuristic and meta-heuristic approaches
In general, optimization methods and algorithms are either
exact or approximate; the former that includes commercial solvers
and exact solution algorithms is capable of finding exact optimum
solutions, but it is incapable of dealing with complex optimiza-
tion problems (i.e., NP-hard and NP-complete problems) because
the computational time increases exponentially. Approximation
methods that include heuristic and meta-heuristic algorithms are
capable of finding near optimum solutions for complex problems in
a short period of time. The main problem with heuristic algorithms
is that they may stick in local optimums and cannot be used in var-
ious type of problems. Meta-heuristic algorithms are proposed to
solve this problem; in fact, they are a type of approximate optimiza-
tion methods that have ways out of local optimums and can be used
in a wide range of problems. Our review study on BSCND shows
that 9 papers with meta-heuristic approach including 6 Genetic
Algorithms (GA), 2 Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithms,
and 1 Binary honey bee foraging (BHBF) algorithm are published
up to now. Notably, all the three algorithms are population-based
which are able to provide a set of solutions at each iteration. Table 9
shows the results of our review on heuristic and meta-heuristic
approaches used in BSCND literature. As shown in Table 9, GA is the
most popular meta-heuristic algorithm in BSCND problems. GA is a
specific type of evolution algorithm that makes use of such natural
evolution techniques as heredity and mutation to find approximate
solutions for optimization and search problems (Mitchell, 1998).
Venema and Calamai (2003) used GA in a P-median problem that
is actually a location-routing problem, for the determination of the
optimum location of biomass supply sites and biorefineries.
Singh et al. (2014) presented an MINLP model with black-box
functions for designing bioethanol supply chain under corn com-
petitive markets. To solve the proposed optimization problem, they
developed a GA. Ayoub et al. (2007) integrated data mining tech-
niques and GA in order to determine the conversion and storing
capacities in such a way that the costs of transportation, carbon
990 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Table 7
Publications applying non-linear programming approaches with identification of different characteristics.

Ref. Type Objective Multi-Period Multi-Objective Sustainability Uncertainty Non-deterministic parameters Solution method

Bai et al. (2011) MINLP 1 HMA

Wang et al. (2013) MINLP 3,13 x CS
Singh et al. (2014) MINLP 3 x HMA
Bruglieri and Liberti (2006) MINLP 1 CS
Corsano et al. (2011) MINLP 2 CS
Čuček et al. (2012) MINLP 1,12,14 x x CS
Singh et al. (2011) NLP 1 CS
Yue and You (2014) MINLP 2 CS
Bai et al. (2012) MINLP 2 CS
Yue et al. (2013) MINLP 1,7 x CS
Gong and You (2014) MINLP 1,13 x EA
Akgul et al. (2014) MINLP 1,7 x CS
Bai et al. (2015) MINLP 1 x Corn production HMA
Babazadeh et al. (2016) MINLP 1,12 x x x Cost and environmental parameters CS
Poudel et al. (2016) MINLP 1 EA
Bai et al. (2016) MINLP 2 HMA

Table 8
Publications applying multi-criteria decision making approaches with identification of different characteristics.

Ref. Type Objective Multi-Period Sustainability Uncertainty Non-deterministic parameters Solution method

Mas et al. (2010) MODM 2,5 x x Biofuel price CS

Giarola et al. (2011a) MODM 3,7 x CS
Giarola et al. (2013) MODM 3,12 x x Biomass and carbon costs CS
Yue et al. (2014) MODM 1,7,10 x x EA
Wang et al. (2013) MODM 3,13 CS
Zamboni et al. (2009a) MODM 1,7 CS
Čuček et al. (2012) MODM 1,12,14 x CS
Ayoub et al. (2007) MODM 6,7,10 x HMA
Ma et al. (2005) MADM 6 CS
Mele et al. (2011) MODM 3,7 x CS
Rozakis et al. (2001) MODM 4,7 CS
Shi et al. (2008) MADM 15 CS
You and Wang (2011) MODM 1,7 x CS
You et al. (2012) MODM 1,7,10 x x CS
You and Wang (2012) MODM 1,7 CS
Tong et al. (2014b) MODM 1,16 x Supply, demand CS
Giarola et al. (2011b) MODM 3,7 x CS
Gebreslassie et al. (2012) MODM 1,18 x x Supply, demand CS
Yue et al. (2013) MODM 1,7 CS
Gong and You (2014) MODM 1,13 HMA
Grigoroudis et al. (2014) MADM 1,19 CS
Akgul et al. (2014) MODM 1,7 CS
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014a) MODM 1,7 x CS
Bairamzadeh et al. (2015) MODM 2,10,12 x x x Feedstock and bioethanol CS
selling prices;unit
environmental impact of
biomass production, biofuel
production, and transportation
Murillo-Alvarado et al. (2015) MODM 2,12 x CS
Paolucci et al. (2016) MODM 3,7 x CS
Roni et al. (2016) MODM 1,7,10 x CS
Miret et al. (2016) MODM 1,10,12 x x CS
Cambero et al. (2016) MODM 3,9 x CS
Cambero and Sowlati (2016) MODM 3,10,9 x x CS
Yue et al. (2016) MODM 1,7 CS
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016) MODM 2,12 x x Raw material price CS
d’Amore and Bezzo (2016) MODM 3,7 x CS
Balaman and Selim (2016) MODM 1,22 x x Unit cost of thermal energy CS
storage,
Upper capacity limit of thermal
energy storage, thermal energy
demand per household
Babazadeh et al. (2016) MODM 1,12 x x Cost and environmental CS
parameters

dioxide emissions, and the number of workers were minimized.
Celli et al. (2008) proposed a solution method which combines GA
and GIS to find the optimum number and locations of hybrid heat-
power plants in Sardinia, Italy. Integrating GA and SQP, Rentizelas
et al. (2009a) and Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010) proposed a
decision support system that could determine the optimum num-
ber and capacity of production facilities in a third generation BSC
with multiple biomass sources. In this method, first, many near
global optimal solutions are found using GA, and then the obtained
solution is used as the starting point for the SQP convergent model
to find the closest global optimal solution. This method decreases
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 991

Table 9
Publications applying heuristic and meta-heurisitc approaches with identification of different characteristics.

Ref. Objective Method Multi-period Multi-Objective Sustainability Uncertainty Non-deterministic parameter

Singh et al. (2014) 3,12 GA x x

Ayoub et al. (2007) 6,7,21 GA x
Celli et al. (2008) 2 GA
Izquierdo et al. (2008) 1 PSO
López et al. (2008) 2 PSO
Rentizelas et al. (2009a) 3 GA
Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010) 3 GA x
Venema and Calamai (2003) 21 GA
Vera et al. (2010) 2 BHBF

Fig. 8. Utilized solution methodologies in different modeling approaches.

Multi-period Single-period behavior of honey bees are used to find the optimal solutions. BHBF
18 16 that has binary variables for location decisions, is the adjusted form
16 of HBF. Vera et al. (2010) proposed a BHBF algorithm that deter-
14 12
mines the location, capacity, and supply area of biomass power
12 11
10 10
plants with the highest profitability for the investors.
10 9 9
8 9
8 7 7
5 6 5 4.3. Solution methodologies
6
4
4
1 1 1 2 1 1
2
2 1 1 1
Solution of BSCND problems can be achieved through different
2 0 0
0
0 1 0 1 solution methods. In this section, the methods used by researchers
0 0 0
for this purpose are classified in “exact solution algorithms”,
“commercial solvers”, and “heuristic, meta-heuristic, and approxi-
mation algorithms”. The first group includes “branch-and-bound”,
Fig. 9. Single-period and multi-period models in different years.
“branch-and-cut”, and “decomposition algorithms”. Branch-and-
bound is the most widely used algorithm among the exact solution
the possibility of finding a local optimal instead of a global solution algorithms which, in some cases, is integrated with heuristic or
which usually happens in the SQP method. Lagrangian relaxation methods to determine the bounds. Decom-
PSO which was firstly introduced by Eberchart and Kennedy position methods are also among useful methods in supply chain
(1995), imitates the social behavior of organisms such as the move- location problems (Mirchandani and Francis, 1990). They are highly
ments of the flocks of birds or schools of fish. It is a computational applied in BSCND problems because the variables in network design
method wherein the problem optimization is done through the problems can be decomposed into binary and continuous variables
improvement of candidate solutions considering the pre-specified (Melo et al., 2009). Nevertheless, decomposition methods has been
criteria. Using this method, it is possible to deal with the prob- used in few studies such as (Marufuzzaman et al., 2014b), (Roni
lems, the solutions of which are either a single point or an area in et al., 2014) and (Chen and Fan, 2012). Notably the multiple layers in
an n-dimensional space (López et al., 2008). Izquierdo et al. (2008) BSCs increase the number of strategic decisions, and consequently
used the PSO algorithm to do the strategic planning of a BSC. This the decomposition into different sub-problems makes the solution
optimization problem is in the form of a non-linear model that has method more difficult and complex. In these cases, use is usually
both binary and continuous variables; the latter are related to the made of heuristic, metaheuristic, and approximation algorithms
strategic-level decisions, and the former, to the production tech- (GA, PSO, BHBF, SAA, LA, CA) that obtain near optimal solutions
nology selection. López et al. (2008) proposed a binary PSO-based in shorter time durations.
approach that is used to determine the optimal location of biomass Some other researchers use commercial solvers such as Lingo,
power plants in a supply area. GAMS, or CPLEX to find the exact solutions. The distribution of
The HBF algorithm which was firstly introduced by Pham et al. BSCND problem solution methodologies is shown in Fig. 8. As
(2005), is a population-based algorithm wherein the food foraging shown in Fig. 8, commercial solvers are the most widely used solu-
992 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000
Multi-objective
16
14
12
10
8
6 5
4 3
2 2
2 1 1 1
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0
Fig. 10. Single-objective and multi-objective models in different years.
tion methodology used in BSCND problems; they have been used
in the solution of 100% LP models, 92.6% of MILP models, 62.5% of
MINLP/NLP models, and 91.4% of MCDM models. Fig. 8 also shows
that exact solution algorithms have been used in the solution of 4.6%
MILP models, 12.5% of MINLP/NLP models, and 2.8% of MCDM mod-
els. Therefore, commercial solvers and exact solution algorithms
are used as a solution method in 81.5% of the models developed
in the area of BSCND. In the remaining 18.5%, use has been made
of heuristic, meta-heuristic, and approximation algorithms to find
approximate optimal solutions. These methods have been used for
the solution of 2.7% of MILP models, 25% of MINLP/NLP models, and
5.7% of MCDM models.
There is always a disagreement among researchers interested
in exact solution methods and those who prefer heuristic, meta-
heuristic, and approximation algorithms because, in many cases,
the use of both is possible. For instance, in many complicated,
sizeable, real world, and non-linear problems, the use of heuris-
tic, meta-heuristic, and approximation algorithms is unavoidable;
however, in these methods, the amount of closeness of the obtained
solution and the optimal one is not measurable, and the opti-
mality is not guaranteed. Therefore, there is a big gap in the
solution methodologies that should be attended to in the future
studies. Making use of hybrid methods, using specific solutions
for specific problems and, also, improving the commercial solvers,
exact solution algorithms as well as heuristic, meta-heuristic, and
approximation algorithms are among the research directions which
can be useful in the future researches.
4.4. Model characteristics
4.4.1. Period
Time is an effective factor in the planning of the BSC and always
affects the tactical and operational planning decisions. In addition,
it affects the biomass supply and biofuel demand in long-term
strategies and causes BSCND decisions to vary. Therefore, dividing
the time horizon into several time periods leads to improvement
in decision making process (De Meyer et al., 2014). Fig. 9 shows
the trend of the use of single and multi-period models in differ-
ent years. As shown in Fig. 9, despite a relative increase in the use
of multi-period models in recent years, the share of single-period
models in BSCND problems is approximately equal to that of multi-
period models (49.3% for single-period and 50.7% for multi-period).
Considering the dynamic nature of some parameters such as the
biomass supply and biofuel demand in different periods, and their
effects on the supply chain strategic decisions, it is expected that
more efforts will be given to development of multi-period models.
Single-objective
14 14 14
11 11 11
10
9 10
8
4
3 3 3
2 2 2
0 0
0 0
4.4.2. Objectives
Single-objective optimization models obtain only one opti-
mal solution while multi-objective ones consider various and
conflicting objectives and yield a set of Pareto solutions (Deb,
2014). In multi-objective BSCND models, the objectives are usu-
ally either economic-environmental or economic-environmental-
social. Fig. 10 shows the application trend of single and
multi-objective models in different years, and indicates a share of
77.4% for single-objective models versus 22.6% for multi-objective
ones. In addition to the economic aspects, the real world BSC oper-
ation affects the environmental aspects (due to the use of land,
water, forest, and greenhouse gas emissions because of the use of
biofuel) and the social aspects (due to the creation/elimination of
job opportunities). Therefore, the little share of the multi-objective
models in BSCND problems is a proof of the existence of a gap in
the literature, and this is why the researchers are expected to con-
centrate more on the development of multi-objective models in the
future studies.
4.5. Uncertainty
Uncertainty has been always a serious challenge in BSCND prob-
lems (Subrahmanyam et al., 1994). Uncertainty in a BSCND problem
includes changes in biomass supply, biofuel demand, and their
prices due to seasonal fluctuations, geographical conditions, unsta-
ble economic conditions, population growth, and other unforeseen
events that may happen in the supply chain. Uncertainty may affect
the feasibility and efficiency of a BSC and may lead to infeasibility
or sub-optimality of BSCND solution. Therefore, taking into account
the uncertain nature of parameters and developing an appropri-
ate non-deterministic model are the requirements of an optimal
design of BSC (Gebreslassie et al., 2012). Different approaches
used to tackle uncertainty in BSCND models include stochastic
programming (e.g. scenario-based, two-stage, probabilistic, and
chance-constrained) and possibilistic programming. The distribu-
tion of different deterministic and non-deterministic approaches
in the selected papers is shown in Fig. 11. Fig. 12 shows the num-
ber of papers used deterministic and non-deterministic models in
different years. The 21.2% share of non-deterministic models is an
indication of lack of sufficient research in this area. The analysis of
the uncertain parameters is the complementary step in this sec-
tion. Fig. 13 shows the results of such analysis; as shown in Fig. 13,
the biomass supply and biofuel demand parameters are the most
important uncertain parameters in BSCND models.
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 993

140 house gas emissions, global warming potential, and environmental

impact; maximizing the total greenhouse gas emission savings, and
120 78.8.%
net energy output) constitute 2%, and social objectives (maximizing
100 the number of job opportunities and total service level, minimiz-
ing the number of workers and social impact) make up 1% of the
80
models’ objectives. It should be noted that in this review study,
60 only models with all three economic, environmental, and social
115 objectives have been selected as sustainable models. As shown in
40 Fig. 14, only 8 papers include all the aspects of sustainability (5%
18.5%
20 27
of the selected papers) while 19 papers (13%) have considered the
2.7% simultaneous optimization of economic and environmental objec-
4
0 tives (Green supply chain) without considering the social aspects.
Deterministic Stochastic Possibilistic
Moreover, 1% of the selected papers have considered the economic
Fig. 11. Deterministic and non-deterministic approaches. and social optimization. These results clearly show the lack of
attention to sustainable development in BSCND models; therefore,
researchers are expected to make more efforts to sustainability
4.6. Sustainability
covering all the three aspects.
Sustainable development is one that meets the requirements of
the present generation without weakening the abilities of the next 4.7. Entities
generations to meet theirs (Sabri and Beamon, 2000). Practically,
sustainability is an equation among economic, environmental, and Depending on the produced biofuel type and the long-term
social needs and requirements (Amigun et al., 2011; Duku et al., policies considered in BSCND, BSCs consist of some entities that
2011; Treleven and Schweikhart, 1988). Economic optimization, are not necessarily similar in different BSCs. These entities include
as one of the very popular objectives in modeling approaches, is (1) supply sites wherein the biomass feedstock is grown and har-
of high importance in BSCND models. From the economic point of vested or produced; (2) collection sites wherein the biomass or the
view, optimization has been done under 13 different objective func- produced biofuel is collected and stored; (3) preprocessing sites
tions in BSCND models. Fig. 14 shows that 78% of model objectives wherein pelleting, size reduction, and drying processes are car-
are economic while environmental objectives (minimizing green- ried out for the required changes to facilitate transportation and

Fig. 12. Deterministic and non-deterministic approaches in different years.

22

18

12

4
3 3
2 2

Fig. 13. Various non-deterministic parameters.

994 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000

Table 10
Entities, data type and region of the reviewed papers.

Ref. SS CS PPS PS IPS BS DS DC Data type Region

Cundiff et al. (1997) x x x Case study USA

Mol et al. (1997) x x x x Case study Netherlands
Nagel (2000) x x x x Case study Germany
Tembo et al. (2003) x x Case study USA
Tatsiopoulos and Tolis (2003) x x x Case study Greece
Freppaz et al. (2004) x x Case study Italy
Gunnarsson et al. (2004) x x x Case study Sweden
Morrow et al. (2006) x x Case study USA
Mapemba et al. (2007) x x x Case study USA
Dunnett et al. (2007) x x x Numerical example -
Mapemba et al. (2008) x x Case study USA
Vlachos et al. (2008) x x x x Case study Greece
Frombo et al. (2009b) x x x Case study Italy
Zamboni et al. (2009b) x x x Case study Italy
Rentizelas et al. (2009a) x x x x x Case study Greece
Ekşioğlu et al. (2009) x x x x Case study USA
Huang et al. (2010) x x x Case study USA
Akgul et al. (2010) x x x Case study Europe
Kim et al. (2010) x x x Case study USA
Dal-Mas et al. (2011) x x x x Case study Italy
Zhu et al. (2011) x x x Numerical example -
Alex Marvin et al. (2012) x x x Case study USA
An et al. (2011) x x x x x x Case study USA
Bai et al. (2011) x x x Case study USA
You et al. (2012) x x x x Case study USA
You and Wang (2011) x x x x Case study USA
Lam et al. (2011) x x x x x Case study Central Europe
Zhu and Yao (2011) x x x x Numerical example -
Kim et al. (2011a) x x x x Case study USA
Chen and Fan (2012) x x x x Case study USA
Frombo et al. (2009a) x x Case study Italy
Panichelli and Gnansounou (2008) x x x Case study Spain
Perpina et al. (2009) x x Case study Spain
Aksoy et al. (2011) x x Case study USA
Andersen et al. (2012) x x x x Case study Argentina
Bowling et al. (2011) x x x Numerical example -
Mas et al. (2010) x x x Case study Italy
Leão et al. (2011) x x x Case study Brazil
Dunnett et al. (2008) x x x Case study Europe
Giarola et al. (2011a) x x x x Case study Italy
Kanzian et al. (2009) x x x Numerical example -
Kim et al. (2011b) x x x Case study USA
Čuček et al. (2010) x x x x Case study Europe
Leduc et al. (2008) x x x Case study Austria
Leduc et al. (2009) x x x Case study India
Leduc et al. (2010) x x x Case study Sweden
Mele et al. (2011) x x x x x Case study Argentina
Parker et al. (2010) x x x Case study USA
Giarola et al. (2012) x x x Case study Italy
Avami (2012) x x x Case study Iran
Balaman and Selim (2014) x x x Case study Turkey
Giarola et al. (2013) x x x Case study Italy
Roni et al. (2014) x x x Case study USA
Li and Hu (2014) x x x x Case study USA
Ren et al. (2013) x x x x Case study China
Yue et al. (2014) x x x Case study USA
Wang et al. (2013) x x Numerical example -
Tong et al. (2013) x x x x Case study USA
Walther et al. (2012) x x x Case study Germany
Kostin et al. (2012) x x x x Case study Argentina
Zhang and Hu (2013) x x x Case study USA
Singh et al. (2014) x x Case study USA
Natarajan et al. (2012) x x Case study Finland
Srisuwan and Dumrongsiri (2012) x x Numerical example -
Tittmann et al. (2010) x x x Case study USA
Tursun et al. (2008) x x x x Case study USA
Wang et al. (2012) x x x Case study UK
Zamboni et al. (2009a) x x x Case study Italy
Ekşioğlu et al. (2010) x x x x x Case study USA
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014b) x x x Case study USA
You and Wang (2012) x x x x x Case study USA
Bruglieri and Liberti (2006) x x x Numerical example -
Corsano et al. (2011) x x x x Numerical example -
Čuček et al. (2012) x x x x Case study Central Europe
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000 995

Table 10 (Continued)

Ref. SS CS PPS PS IPS BS DS DC Data type Region

Singh et al. (2011) x x x Case study India

Ayoub et al. (2007) x x x Case study Japan
Celli et al. (2008) x x Case study Italy
Izquierdo et al. (2008) x x Case study Italy
López et al. (2008) x x Numerical example -
Rentizelas and Tatsiopoulos (2010) x x Case study Greece
Venema and Calamai (2003) x x x Numerical example -
Vera et al. (2010) x x Case study Spain
Ma et al. (2005) x x Case study USA
Rozakis et al. (2001) x x Case study Greece
Shi et al. (2008) x x Case study China
Yue and You (2014) x x x Case study USA
Tong et al. (2014b) x x x x x x Case study USA
Sharma et al. (2013b) x x x Case study USA
Giarola et al. (2011b) x x Case study Italy
Tong et al. (2014a) x x x x x x x Case study USA
Marvin et al. (2012) x x x Case study USA
Bai et al. (2012) x x x Case study USA
Akgul et al. (2011) x x x Case study UK
Akgul et al. (2012) x x x Case study UK
Chinese and Meneghetti (2009) x x x Case study Italy
Gebreslassie et al. (2012) x x x Case study USA
Yue et al. (2013) x x x x Case study USA
Zhang et al. (2013) x x x x Case study USA
Azadeh et al. (2014) x x x Numerical example -
Elia et al. (2013) x x x Case study USA
An and Wilhelm (2014) x x x x x x Case study USA
Xie et al. (2014) x x x x x Case study USA
Palak et al. (2014) x x Numerical example -
Gong and You (2014) x x Numerical example -
Grigoroudis et al. (2014) x x x Numerical example -
Marufuzzaman et al. (2014a) x x x x Case study USA
Natarajan et al. (2014) x x x Case study Finland
Osmani and Zhang (2013) x x x Case study USA
Akgul et al. (2014) x x Case study UK
Giarola et al. (2014) x x x x Case study France, Germany and Hungary
Foo et al. (2013) x x Case study Malaysia
Ebadian et al. (2013) x x x Case study Canada
McLean and Li (2013) x x x x Case study Central Europe
Mansoornejad et al. (2013) x x x Case study Canada
Cambero et al. (2015) x x x Case study Canada
Bairamzadeh et al. (2015) x x x Case study Iran
Babazadeh et al. (2015) x x x x x Case study Iran
Bai et al. (2015) x x x Case study USA
Ren et al. (2015) x x x Numerical example -
Murillo-Alvarado et al. (2015) x x x Case study Mexico
Ahn et al. (2015) x x x Case study South Korea
Sharifzadeh et al. (2015) x x x Case study UK
Paulo et al. (2015) x x x Case study Portugal
Gonela et al. (2015b) x x x x Case study USA
Gonela et al. (2015a) x x x x Case study USA
Babazadeh et al. (2016) x x x x x x Case study Iran
Paolucci et al. (2016) x x Case study Italy
Roni et al. (2016) x x x x x Case study USA
Duarte et al. (2016) x x x Case study Colombia
Lim and Lam (2016) x x x Case study Malaysia
De Meyer et al. (2016) x x x Case study Belgium
Miret et al. (2016) x x x x Case study France
Ng and Maravelias (2016) x x x Case study USA
Poudel et al. (2016) x x x x Case study USA
Cambero et al. (2016) x x x Case study Canada
Bai et al. (2016) x x x Case study USA
Cambero and Sowlati (2016) x x x Case study Canada
Yue et al. (2016) x x x Case study UK
Zhang et al. (2016) x x x Case study USA
Mohseni et al. (2016) x x x Case study Iran
Hombach et al. (2016) x x x Case study Germany
Woo et al. (2016) x x x x Case study South Korea
Santibañez-Aguilar et al. (2016) x x x Case study Mexico
d’Amore and Bezzo (2016) x x Case study Italy
Balaman and Selim (2016) x x x x Case study Turkey
Azadeh and Arani (2016) x x x Numerical example -

SS: supply site; CS: collection site; PPS: preprocessing site; PS: processing site; IPS: intermediate processing site; BS: blending site; DS: distribution site; DC: demand center.
996 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000
Fig. 14. Distribution of three types of objective functions in the publications.
storage; (4) intermediate processing sites wherein such interme-
diate products as bio-oil are produced; (5) processing sites wherein
biomass is turned into biofuel or bioenergy; (6) blending sites
wherein bioethanol is synthesized with gasoline; (7) distribution
sites wherefrom the stored biofuel or bioenergy is sent to the
demand center; (8) demand center where final products such as
biodiesel, bioethanol, gasoline synthesized with bioethanol, and
the power produced from biomass are used. An evaluation of the
selected papers, is shown in Table 10 based on the supply chain
entities. Supply and processing sites have the highest frequency in
the reviewed papers because production of biofuel always requires
one supply and one processing site. Meanwhile, blending sites have
the lowest frequency among other facilities because they exist only
in the supply chains wherein the final product is a synthesis of bio-
fuel and gasoline (see (Tong et al., 2014a; Ekşioğlu et al., 2009, 2010;
Zamboni et al., 2009a; Tursun et al., 2008; Chen and Fan, 2012; Dal-
Mas et al., 2011)). Some authors (e.g. (Tong et al., 2014a, 2014b; An
and Wilhelm, 2014; An et al., 2011)) have proposed an integrated
view of the BSC wherein all the possible facilities, from supply site
to demand center, are considered. Evaluation of such sizeable com-
plex supply chains necessitates an integrated approach (Allen et al.,
1998).
4.8. Data and region
Verification, validation, sensitivity analysis, and the applica-
bility proof of the proposed approaches need data that have the
highest compatibility with the subject. In the literature, these data
are gathered either from case studies or randomly generated by the
aid of software in reasonable bounds. This section aims to inves-
tigate and evaluate the case studies existed in the literature (see
Table 10). Figs. 15 and 16 show the results of these investigations.
Case study is an appropriate method for studying scientific prob-
lems in the real life situations. This method presents a detailed
description and helps a better understanding of the subject under
investigation (Merriam, 1988); this is why it outperforms numer-
140
88.4%
120
100
80
129
60
40
11.6%
20
17
0
Case study Numerical example
Fig. 15. Distribution of the publications based on the use of case study and numerical
example.
ical example. As shown in Fig. 15, 88.4% of the reviewed papers
include case studies.
Similar to fossil fuels, the production of biofuels is limited
to some specific geographical parts of the world wherein the
process is based on the type of the biomass feedstock avail-
able in the region and other economic and political factors. At
present, the USA, Brazil, Germany, France, Argentina, Netherlands,
Indonesia and Thailand are respectively the major producers
of biodiesel (http://www.statista.com/statistics/271472/biodiesel-
production-in-selected-countries/), and the USA, Brazil, Europe,
China, Canada, Thailand, Argentina, and India are respectively
the major producers of bioethanol in the world (http://www.
ethanolrfa.org/resources/industry/statistics/world/). As shown in
Fig. 16, the USA, as the largest bioenergy producer, has the high-
est number of BSCND-related case studies. Despite the low rank of
Italy among the major biofuel producers, numerous case studies in
Italy show the great interest of researchers toward bioenergy pro-
duction development and BSCND expansion in this country. The
limited number of case studies in other European countries (espe-
cially Germany and France), South American countries (specifically
Argentina and Brazil), Asian countries (specifically China, India,
Thailand and Indonesia) and Canada is an indication of a gap in
this part of the literature which is to be considered more in the
future studies.
5. Conclusions and directions for future research
The role of bioenergy in the future ‘energy supply’ depends
on the extent to which the relevant barriers can overcome. To
overcome these hurdles and uncertainties and improve the devel-
opment of a sustainable and competitive bioenergy market, BSCND
is pivotal and crucial. This paper puts forward an overview of the
research developments regarding the use of optimization methods
for the design of bioenergy supply chain.
This review paper presents a comprehensive study of 146
BSCND papers published in different scientific journals from Jan.
1997 to Jul. 2016. Due to the fact that network design modeling is
involved with strategic decisions, this paper strongly focuses on the
strategic decisions in a BSC consisting of facility-related, biomass-
related and final product-related strategic decisions. Moreover,
this research analyzes and classifies the selected papers accord-
ing to modeling approaches, uncertainties, solution methodologies,
sustainability, model features, entities, data and regions of the
case studies, to clearly show the gaps in the literature and deter-
mine research opportunities and future directions. Evaluation of
the tables presented in different sections of this study shows that
many researches are required to fill these gaps. With respect to the
figures related to different features of the proposed models (i.e.,
Figs. 5, 6, 9–11 and 14), it can be concluded that the researchers have
 H. Ghaderi et al. / Industrial Crops and Products 94 (2016) 972–1000
60
50
40
30
20
10
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2
0
Fig. 16. Distribution of the publications based on the regions of the case studies.
been mostly orientated towards single-feedstock, single-product,
single-period, single-objective, and deterministic models without
considering all the dimensions of sustainability.
This study shows that the most of BSCND papers apply
mathematical programming approaches. Among the mathemat-
ical programming approaches, MILP is the high usage approach
applied to optimize binary variables that determine whether a facil-
ity is open at a certain place and continuous variables, which are
related to the biomass or bioenergy flows between facilities. How-
ever, real world problems are always complicated; therefore, they
cannot be modeled using simple MILP approaches. Indeed, the com-
plexities of non-linear models and the simplicity of the linear ones
encourage researchers to develop MILP models for BSCND prob-
lems. Using non-linear approaches compatible with real-world
problems, instead of simple linear methods, and more flexible con-
vex optimization methods and solution methodologies could help
researchers to deal with real world problems.
Solution methodology in BSCND problems is a challenging issue
according to computational complexity of such problems. In many
complicated, sizeable, real world, and non-linear problems, the
use of heuristic, meta-heuristic and approximation algorithms is
unavoidable; however, in these methods, the amount of closeness
of the obtained solution and the optimal solution is not measurable
in most of the cases. Developing exact solution algorithms such as
decomposition–based algorithms or hybrid solution methods are
among the most attractive future research directions.
Regarding some qualitative and quantitative analyses,
researchers may consider the parameters of their models as
deterministic or non-deterministic. The little share of non-
deterministic models is an indication of unwillingness due to
the computational complications in their applications. Different
approaches utilized to tackle uncertainty in BSCND models include
stochastic (scenario-based, two-stage, probabilistic, and chance-
constrained) and possibilistic programming. This study indicates
that researchers almost considered stochastic approaches to
handle uncertainties. However, fuzzy logic, robust optimization,
interval approaches, and chaos theory are useful approaches
which can be utilized to cope with data uncertainty. Regarding
a stochastic way of dealing with uncertainties, the results of
analyses indicates that researchers should consider multi-stage
stochastic approaches and robust optimization techniques instead
of traditional stochastic programming models as future oppor-
tunities of research. In terms of uncertain parameters, supply of
biomass and demand of biofuel are the most important parameters
that are addressed as uncertain parameters in most of related
papers. However, these are not the only imprecise parameters
in BSCND problems; some other important parameters under
997
52
16
5 5 5 6 6
3 3 4
2 2 2 2 2 2 2
uncertainty may include biomass and biofuel price, feedstock cost
and production technologies.
Practically, a sustainable supply chain needs to integrate consid-
eration of economic, environmental, and social objectives (Amigun
et al., 2011; Duku et al., 2011; Treleven and Schweikhart, 1988).
The results of our studies indicate that only eight papers pro-
posed multi-objective models in which the above-mentioned three
aspects are considered. Therefore, it can be concluded that the
absence of sustainability is strongly felt in BSCND models. Lack of
sustainability in BSCND models results in making decisions which
are risky or will not benefit from the opportunities that higher levels
of sustainable BSCND models put forward. Accordingly, developing
models that combine economic, environmental and social sus-
tainability concepts is a future direction for researchers who are
interested in sustainable BSCND.
In terms of analyzing strategic decisions (facility-related deci-
sion), it is shown that a majority of papers have focused mostly on
the processing sites; however, the optimization of BSCND models
is determined by interrelationship and interdependence between
locations of all facilities and their capacities. This means that more
efforts are required to propose integrated and holistic BSCND mod-
els that give enough emphasis to all facilities in the entire supply
chain.
According to the results of this study, multi-objective and multi-
period approaches are sadly lacking in BSCND models. Time affects
the biomass supply and biofuel demand in long-term strategies and
causes BSCND decisions to vary. Considering the dynamism and
changes in such parameters and variables and their impacts on the
supply chain strategic decisions is highly needed to be followed
in future research efforts. Moreover, the little share of the multi-
objective models in BSCND models is a proof of the existence of
gap in the literature, and this is why the researchers are expected
to concentrate more on the development of multi-objective models
in the future studies.
Finally, biofuel production is limited to some specific countries
in which the production process is based on the type of biomass
feedstock available in the country and other economic and political
factors. Conducting case studies of BSCND in various countries with
different climates can be also regarded as another future research
opportunity.
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