Towards biogas purifier supply chain resilience

Biomethane plays a crucial role in promoting the circular economy and energy independence. To produce biomethane, one starts with biogas, which is generated by the fermentation of organic materials in a process known as methanisation. This biogas is primarily composed of methane and carbon dioxide. Although it can be used directly to generate electricity, its use in the natural gas network requires additional purification. Biogas purifiers, which purify this raw gas by removing undesirable elements, are essential for obtaining high-quality biomethane. Prodeval is a leader in the production of biogas purifiers, but its current logistical system (supply, production, distribution, installation), although efficient on a small scale, shows limitations in meeting the growing demand and needs to triple its production by 2027, from 150 to 450 units per year.
The production of biogas purifiers is complex due to the many stages required to ensure their quality and reliability, ranging from design to assembly, component manufacturing, and performance testing. Each stage must adhere to strict safety and quality standards. Additionally, reliance on a limited number of suppliers exposes the supply chain to risks in the event of a failure of a key player. Currently, supply chain management does not guarantee resilient production, meaning capable of facing unforeseen events and market fluctuations.
To address the challenges posed by increased production and the need to diversify suppliers, it is imperative to reconfigure the current supply chain. This includes integrating risk and disruption management strategies while optimizing logistical flows to ensure the continuity and efficiency of production. By adopting best practices to enhance the resilience of this chain (e.g., diversifying supply sources and standardizing processes), Prodeval will be able to not only increase its production capacity but also better manage potential disruptions.
Thus, the proposed thesis aims to (re)design a resilient supply chain for Prodeval, capable of managing risks and ensuring production continuity. Objectives include analysing current vulnerabilities, defining resilience indicators, and developing decision-support methods to enhance logistical disruption management. The thesis will also propose innovative strategies to anticipate and manage logistical incidents, thereby ensuring the sustainability of Prodeval's activities in a rapidly expanding sector.
To achieve these objectives, three steps are proposed for the methodology. The first step will involve a literature review of works related to the configuration and management of logistics in the biogas industry. The second step will entail modelling the current supply chain at Prodeval to identify stakeholders, processes, and potential disruption risks through field immersion. The third and final step will consider the development of decision-support tools for resilient logistical management, using statistical methods or discrete-event simulation models with software such as Flexsim.
Throughout the project, the implementation and application of the developed techniques will be carried out on real configurations provided by Prodeval, a crucial step for validating and improving the proposed tools. The exact timeline will depend on the results obtained and the obstacles encountered.