Holonic Systems for Traceability in Fruit Supply Chains

Holonic systems have been around for nearly thirty years. In this time, holonic systems have been shown to support coordination in many industries, including the manufacturing and agricultural industries. However, the ability of holonic systems to enable traceability in fruit supply chains has not yet been demonstrated. This paper demonstrates the suitability of holonic systems for enabling traceability in fruit supply chains, by mapping the properties of holonic systems to the principles of food traceability. The properties of holonic systems are found to relate strongly with the principles of food traceability, suggesting that holonic systems could be well suited to enable traceability within fruit supply chains. Furthermore, this paper presents an illustrative example of a holonic architecture that enables traceability in a fruit supply chain.