Abstract
Within the frame of this chapter, the author focuses on the distribution processes of green supply chain solutions and describes a potential mathematical model, taking environmental aspects into consideration. The first part of the chapter includes a systematic literature review. Based on the identified research gap, a new mathematical model is described, which makes it possible to describe last-mile logistics processes from an environmental point of view. The functional model of the distribution system includes the potential of Industry 4.0 technologies, which makes it possible to gather real-time information from the distribution process and use real-time status information for a sophisticated design and operation. The mathematical model of this approach defines an NP-hard optimization problem; therefore, heuristic optimization algorithm is supposed to solve the design and operation tasks of the green distribution problem. As the computational results show, cyber-physical systems increase the performance of green supply chain solutions and have a great impact on operational cost. As the numerical example shows, the integrated approach resulted in a 5.3% cost reduction in transportation operations.