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Maintaining assortment in a warehouse, distribution centre or retail store is expensive. We propose a method for assortment optimization that allows defining the top-performing products in the warehouse, distribution centre or retail store. It allows finding top-performing products in a given location using actual sales data or from concurrency when the sales data are unavailable. The developed method of product performance evaluation could be used by distribution companies to find the right pricing strategy. The method described also proposes how to improve the assortment in order to expand the business and help the distributor or retailer to meet his business objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficiency management is increasing its importance in the improvement of the chain sustainability. As such, this study aims to assess the performance efficiency of retail stores in fashion industry. The integrated approach of Delphi and DEA techniques was employed to address the performance efficiency assessment problem. The Delphi method was used to define the input and output variables, whereas the DEA was applied to evaluate the performance efficiency. The proposed approach was then applied into a fashion company in Hochiminh city of Vietnam to assess its retail chain performance. The results showed that labour, operational costs, size of store, number of customers, and sales revenue are considered as input and output variables in the retailing performance efficiency evaluation. Besides, it is also concluded in the study that most of efficiency retail stores are located in the dynamic districts and the efficient stores can be at any size. The proposed approach verifies its usefulness in the retailing sector. Therefore, it can be applied to the performance efficiency of retail stores in all industries. In terms of theoretical contribution, the input and output variables proposed in this study may devote to the literature in the concept and assessment of the performance efficiency. Moreover, comprehensive and multi-variable assessment of retailing sector may bring lots of benefits not only to the decision-making units but also the authorities or association with constraint funds. • An integrated approach of Delphi and DEA is an effective approach to solve the performance efficiency evaluation problem. • The proposed approach verifies its usefulness in the retailing sector not only in fashion industry but in other industries.. • Delphi was used to define the input and output variables, whereas DEA was applied to evaluate the performance efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Food waste has become a major concern globally, leading to high economic, environmental and social awareness, as well as inclusion in international policy documents. In the developed world, the retail stage has the greatest potential for waste reduction as it balances demand with supply, stimulates demand (thus affecting waste at the consumer level) and sets standards to the supply and the products (thus affecting food loss upstream). To precisely direct managerial intervention towards products with high waste-mitigation potential, the waste impact needs to be quantified. Previous studies measuring waste have examined individual metrics exclusive of each other, which affects the ranking of products. The present study proposes a method for prioritising waste based on combined monetary and environmental indicators, and it demonstrates the applicability of the method through empirical data from Scandinavian retail stores. The contribution of the proposed metric is that it results in a unique score comprising economic and environmental impacts for every single product, thus directing the managerial intervention more precisely. In addition, it enables choosing a weight for the economic and the environmental indicators, thus adding to the previous literature that looks at the products either through an economic or environmental perspective, exclusive of each other. Applying the method confirmed the previous research at a product group level that bread, meat and fruits/vegetables are the highest wasters. In addition, for some products, such as meat and fruit, the dependency between economic and environmental impacts is weaker, whereas it is stronger for others (e.g. bread and biscuits), thereby necessitating a method to gauge waste in both dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geothermal systems are becoming increasingly popular during the surge of green building. However, their popularity is limited by a lack of knowledge and perceived risk associated with a new system. These systems do not pollute the environment because they operate from earth's natural energy and do not alter chemical compounds. Geothermal systems are cheaper in the long run because only equipment that uses combustion requires expensive fuel to operate. These savings counteract the higher price of the equipment installation. Energy conservation also benefits society because there is less damage to the environment. Buildings that are sustainable can be recognized with LEED certification but properties that violate environmental standards can be penalized. Geothermal systems are a good option to improve sustainability because it can improve the quality of the work environment and profitability of business. Moderately sized retail building projects that use them are at an advantage compared to those that do not. This paper provides an in depth study of geothermal system for retails stores in Northeastern United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food waste is a major problem in modern society and carries considerable social, economic and environmental costs. Food production causes greenhouse gas emissions along the entire food supply chain and wasting food means that those emissions are produced in vain. There is consensus that food waste has to be reduced. For example, the EU and some of its member countries have set concrete targets to reduce the amount of waste. However, in order to achieve the overall goal of a more sustainable economy, not only quantitative but also environmental indicators have to be considered when pursuing waste reduction goals. This study analysed the discrepancies between the waste quantity and wastage carbon footprint (CF) profiles of perishable food products wasted in Swedish supermarkets. The wastage CF, defined as the product CF from cradle up to and including delivery to the retailer times the amount of the product wasted at the store, was calculated for products in the meat, deli, cheese, dairy and fruit & vegetable departments of six Swedish supermarkets. The CF from cradle to retailer of the various products was determined based on existing life cycle assessment (LCA) literature. Emissions due to production and transportation were considered. Data on wasted mass of the products in the period 2010–2012 was provided by the Swedish retail chain Willys. Data on bread waste are mainly held by the bakeries, and were thus not included in the study. Over a three-year period, 1570 t of fresh food (excluding bread) were wasted in the six supermarkets. The associated total wastage CF was 2500 t CO 2 e. The fruit & vegetable department contributed 85% of the wasted mass and 46% of the total wastage CF. The meat department contributed 3.5% of the wasted mass, while it accounted for 29% of the total wastage CF. The wastage CF of each department tended to be highly concentrated in certain products and thus halving the waste of the top three products in each department could save more than 25 t CO 2 e per store and year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A graph-based model of superpixels is introduced for segmenting gap/non-gap regions in the shelf images of supermarkets. • A shelf image is over-segmented into superpixels to create a graph of superpixels (SG). • The nodes and edges of a SG are uniquely encoded using our graph convolutional and Siamese networks. • A structural support vector machine is formulated with the SG for finding gaps in shelves. • Our annotations for three retail product datasets labelling gap/non-gap regions are released at https://github.com/gapDetection/gapDetectionDatasets. Automatic detection of empty spaces (gaps) between the displayed products as seen in the images of shelves of a supermarket is an interesting image segmentation problem. This paper presents the first known attempt to solve this commercially relevant challenge. The shelf image is first over-segmented into a number of superpixels to construct a graph of superpixels (SG). Subsequently, a graph convolutional network and a Siamese network are built to process the SG. Finally, a structural support vector machine based inference model is formulated based on SG for segmenting the gap and non-gap regions. In order to validate our method, we manually annotate the images of shelves of three benchmark datasets of retail products. We have achieved ∼ 70 to ∼ 85 % segmentation accuracy (in terms of mean intersection-over-union) on the annotated datasets. A part of the annotated data is released at https://github.com/gapDetection/gapDetectionDatasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To prevent retail food wastage, better understanding of waste patterns is necessary. Flows of fruit and vegetables at six Swedish retail stores were analysed in this study, both by analysing recorded data and by performing physical measurements. Total wasted fresh fruits and vegetables were 4.3% of delivered quantity. The largest category was pre-store waste (goods rejected at delivery; 3.01%), followed by recorded in-store waste (0.99%) and unrecorded in-store waste (0.3%). A positive correlation between unrecorded in-store waste and total waste was found, indicating that a thorough recording of waste could be an effective way to reduce retail waste of fresh fruits and vegetables. The praxis allowing large amounts of reclamations of delivered goods was recognised as the main reason for waste, since pre-store waste contributed with the majority of the waste flow. Initiatives to reduce fresh fruit and vegetable waste in the studied retail chain thus need to focus on the pre-store waste to be efficient. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Study of evacuation from fire is always focused on evacuation models, but rarely on evacuation experiments. This paper presents the results acquired from an announced evacuation drill of XIN LIAN XIN Store in China. There are two floors and five emergency exits in the building. Most of the customers knew there would be an evacuation drill before they entered the store, but they did not know the exact beginning time. The video of the whole evacuation process was recorded using television cameras installed in the store. The customers who evacuated from the store were asked to complete a questionnaire by researchers positioned outside the five exits. Analysis of the videotapes provided information on total evacuation time and actual number of customers who evacuated from the store. Questionnaires present the information on customer characteristics, primary behavior at alarm, pre-movement time and exit choice. The analysis results show that pre-movement time is an important part of evacuation process. Strengthening detector, alarm equipments and staff training are very effective and necessary for fire safety in China. These data can also be used as input parameters for evacuation models in performance-based fire protection design or validating the evacuation models'' accuracy. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Temperature and relative humidity (RH) are the most important environmental factors affecting the sensory quality of fresh produce, and therefore, the consumer acceptability for fruits and vegetables displayed in a produce department. Poor temperature management inevitably occurs in commercial handling and reduces the quality and maximum potential shelf life of fruits and vegetables. Since there is a lack of information on the actual temperatures registered inside local distribution trucks or in consumer retail displays, and the effects on the produce quality, the current study was designed to evaluate the segment of the distribution chain that comprises the time the produce arrives from the distribution center to the store, is displayed at the store, and then stored under household conditions. Temperature and RH were recorded in three different produce departments, at reception and during a 6-week retail display period. Truck and produce temperatures were collected immediately upon opening of the doors, and display temperatures were monitored inside 27 refrigerated and non-refrigerated retail displays. Visual quality of 37 different produce items was evaluated, and surface or pulp temperatures were measured immediately upon unloading from the delivery truck. Reasons for produce waste were recorded on a daily basis during a 6-week period. Shelf life studies were conducted under simulated household conditions using samples collected at the stores. Results from this study showed that chilling-sensitive commodities were transported under too cold conditions, whereas heat-sensitive commodities were transported under too warm conditions. Visual quality of the produce received at the store ranged from good to poor depending on the fruit or vegetable evaluated, with raspberry receiving the lowest visual quality score in 6.7% of store deliveries, and banana, fresh-cut vegetables, peach and pineapple receiving the best visual quality score in 100% of store deliveries. Temperatures measured inside retail displays showed a wide variation, depending on the store and location inside the display, ranging from −1.2°C to 19.2°C in refrigerated displays and from 7.6°C to 27.7°C in non-refrigerated displays. RH ranged from 55.9% to 92.9% in refrigerated displays and from 29.7% to 86.6% in non-refrigerated displays. Poor temperature management was the major cause of produce waste (55%) whereas expired date and mechanical damage accounted for 45% of the produce wasted. Results from this study show that fruits and vegetables are often handled under adverse environmental conditions, resulting in produce with poor quality and shorter shelf life, and increased waste at the retail and consumer levels. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Discussions at the national level about critical infrastructure and its vulnerability are more common now following the events of September 11. The National Emergency Supply Agency organised a training exercise to test the logistics of food supply following passage of a plume containing radioactive material over a district in Finland. This short paper summarises the problems that had to be faced and suggests a way forward for improving emergency preparedness in this area. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Retail food waste was estimated at 13 kg/capita/year, with 3 kg/capita/year directed to landfill. • Supermarkets have voluntarily implemented strategies that divert food waste from landfill. • Concern for the environment was a key motivator for food waste reduction in the retail setting. • An important barrier is the lack of resources for staff training and education. • Policies to reduce household rather than retail food waste will have more impact in New Zealand. Little is known about the amount of food wasted in the retail sector. This study aimed to quantify retail food waste in New Zealand (NZ) and identify key drivers for food waste reduction, using a mixed-methods, observational study design that consisted of three parts: onsite food waste audits undertaken in 16 selected stores (complete data from 11 stores); semi-structured interviews with key retail staff from each store; and obtaining existing data from retailers. Retail food waste in NZ was estimated at 13 kg/capita/year for all food waste and diverted product (i.e. all food not sold or utilised at a retail level), which included 5 kg/capita/year designated as food waste (i.e. food directed to landfill, protein reprocessing and compost), with 3 kg/capita/year of this sent to landfill. Fresh vegetables (27%), bakery (23%), meat and fish (19%) and fresh fruit (17%) contributed the most to discarded product. The motivators for encouraging food waste reduction were: concern for the environment; making profit; caring for the community; and doing the 'right' thing. The barriers to food waste reduction were: training and educating staff; food safety concerns; quality standards; availability and capacity of waste diversion avenues; and lack of available resources. Audit data and food waste data recorded by retailers were similar. NZ has a number of policies and practices that successfully divert retail food waste away from landfill, in particular, retailers have established relationships with various groups that use their waste as a resource including protein reprocessors, local farmers, and food rescue charities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessing the efficiency of retail supply chains (RSCs) requires analytical tools that address the different activities involved in these chains. In this sense, dynamic network Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) arises as a suitable method to evaluate the operational performance of RSCs over a period of time. However, its use for sustainability-oriented efficiency assessment constitutes a knowledge gap that limits its applicability for thorough decision-making processes, e.g. at the retail company level. This article fills this gap through the combination of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and dynamic network DEA. A novel five-step LCA + DEA approach is proposed and applied to a case study of 30 RSCs in Spain for the period 2015–2017. In this case, the supply chain structure involves three divisions: central distribution, operation of retail stores, and home delivery. Both overall- and term-efficiency scores were found to widely range from 0.38 to 1.00, with only 1 RSC deemed efficient. Regarding divisional efficiency, store operation was found to generally show significantly higher efficiency scores than the distribution divisions. The link between long distribution distances and low efficiency stresses the relevance of integrating a network perspective into the efficiency assessment. In addition to efficiency scores, the LCA + DEA approach enriches the assessment by providing environmental, operational and socio-economic benchmarks to further support the management of RSCs from a sustainability perspective. Unlabelled Image • Life Cycle Assessment and dynamic network Data Envelopment Analysis were combined. • The method was proven through a case study of 30 retail supply chains with 3 divisions. • Efficiency scores, sustainability benchmarks and economic savings were estimated. • Unlike store operation, central distribution and home delivery bring inefficiency. • The network perspective enriches the results from previous unidivisional studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]