Wine companies face two important challenges in their supply chain: the international shipping temperatures and their effect on the perceived quality of the wine and the optimization of the bottling schedule. The wine maker takes special care in producing the best quality product, which is then shipped to the importer/distributor or consumer, generally in non-refrigerated containers at the mercy of the prevailing environmental conditions. The contributions of this work is that it is the first to measure, for a significant period of time, the temperatures along the international wine supply chain and to link them to the specific supply chain processes. This is also the first work that analyzes the effect of shipping temperature on the perceived quality of the product by those who make the purchase decision for importers, restaurants and supermarkets. Results indicate that the wine is very likely to have been exposed to extreme temperatures during shipping. For white wines, tasters are able to detect differences in wines which have been exposed to shipping temperatures and show a preference towards them. For red wines, they are unable to detect differences. Our contribution to the second challenge was the development of a model that produces solutions for the wine bottling lot sizing and scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times, in an adequate time-frame, which can be implemented by large wineries. We have developed a model and algorithm that produces fast, good and robust solutions for the winery lot sizing and scheduling problem with sequence dependent setup times. We implemented an effective decomposition algorithm that uses the structure of the problem, that can be applied to other families of sequence dependent scheduling and lot sizing problem. Results indicate that the model achieves reductions of 30\% in the total plan costs.

The South African wine industry is a significant contributor to the South African economy. However the wine producers are facing financial and operational challenges as they operate and compete in a highly traded local and international wine market. These financial and operational challenges manifest as risks in their supply chain and could affect the future sustainability of their business. It against this backdrop that this study aimed to identify the supply chain risks experienced by the Stellenbosch wine producers, and how they manage and overcome these risks. The research was conducted at five wine producers located in each of five Stellenbosch wine producing areas. The producers were selected through a non-probability purposive sample with the assistance of a gatekeeper. The study is descriptive and exploratory with qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with ten participants from the five wine producers. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. The study found that the main risk factors centered around: the planning activities concerning the risks involved in matching demand and supply; agricultural activities including the drought and other external hazard risks; the wine making activities including in-process controls; financial risks including margin erosion due to inflationary costs not being matched by selling price increases; and human resource risks. This study recommends that wine producers use a formal risk appraisal process, implement a supplier development process, could make use of precision viticulture methods and improved pest control measures. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)