Managing the food supply chain in the age of digitalisation: a conceptual approach in the fisheries sector

Abstract

In the food supply chain, digitalisation is a process that can have a major impact at the point of origin/point of capture. In order to study the process of digitalisation, this work proposes a two-layer conceptual approach applicable to the fisheries sector. The conceptual approach has a sensor layer where wireless sensor network (WSN) theory is used to model the associated energy consumption of a network of sensors. In the analytics layer, data collected from sensor readings associated to ocean monitoring are analysed using time series. A case study in the fisheries sector is used to illustrate the proposed approach where WSN theory is evaluated based on its applicability to oceanic observation buoys equipped with sensors. Then, a large dataset generated from ocean buoys readings is analysed using time series/scatter diagrams to identify trends and patterns involving snow crab catch conditions. The proposed approach can be seen as a tool that can assist in the management of the supply chain and the adoption of more efficient practices in the fisheries sector which is experiencing a process of digitalisation characterised by the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to monitor product history and provenance tracking among others.