A method for assessing the viability of distributed localised manufacturing within the food sector

This thesis reports on the research undertaken to increase the sustainability of food production through the transition towards a ‘Distributed Localised Manufacturing’ (DLM) strategy. The DLM strategy aims to facilitate holistic improvements of future food supply chains. The principle objective of this research is to generate an assessment method which collects relevant food manufacturing systems data and expert knowledge to evaluate the suitability of DLM to manufacture the wide range of food product families. The research contributions are divided into three major parts. The first part reviews relevant literature regarding the organisation of the food manufacturing sector and its current behaviour, examines alternative manufacturing strategies and assesses the need for this research. The second part of this research defines the concept of DLM in the context of food manufacturing, and identifies four system models; namely Manufacturer DLM, Retailer DLM, Service Provider DLM and Consumer DLM; which can be used to implement the DLM strategy. Furthermore, it investigates a method used to assess the suitability of this approach for specific product families using nine distinctive metrics, and a decision-support model utilised to identify the most appropriate DLM system model for a specific application. The final part demonstrates the application of the developed assessment method through the generation of case studies. [Continues.]