Abstract
Reverse logistics is convincingly one of the most efficient solutions to reduce environmental pollution and waste of resources by capturing and recovering the values of the used products. Many studies have been developed for decision-making at tactical, practical, and operational levels of the reverse supply chain. However, many enterprises face a challenge that is how to design the reverse logistics networks into their existing forward logistics networks to account for both economic and environmental sustainability. In this case, it is necessary to design a novel reverse logistics network by reconstructing the facilities based on the existing forward logistics network. Multi-level investments are considered for facility reconstruction because more investment and more advanced remanufacturing technologies need to be applied to reduce the carbon emissions and improve facility capacities. Besides, uncertain elements include the demand for new products and return quantity of used products, making this problem challenging. To handle those uncertain elements, a bi-objective stochastic integer nonlinear programming model is proposed to facilitate this novel reverse logistics network design problem with economic and environmental objectives, where tactical decisions of facility locations, investment level choices, item flows, and vehicle assignments are involved. To show the applicability and computational efficiency of the proposed model, several numerical experiments with sensitivity analysis are provided. Finally, the trade-off between the profit and carbon emissions is presented and the sensitive analysis of changing several key input parameters is also discussed.
Highlights
Facing the increasing competitiveness of business and market globalization, firms have been focusing on the supply chain network design for a few decades
Because it has been suggested by experts that 80% of supply chain cost is determined by facility locations and item flows among facilities, a better supply chain network should be strategically designed to reduce the cost [2,3,4,5,6]
In the last few decades, with a greater awareness of responsibility for the environment and the need to sustain profitability in a competitive market, the reverse logistics network design has become a key part of supply chain management, which has resulted in great interests in remanufacturing operations and the sustainability of logistics in supply chain management [7,8]
Summary
Facing the increasing competitiveness of business and market globalization, firms have been focusing on the supply chain network design for a few decades. The supply chain network design involves suppliers of raw materials, production plants, distribution centers (warehouses), and customer zones. In the last few decades, with a greater awareness of responsibility for the environment and the need to sustain profitability in a competitive market, the reverse logistics network design has become a key part of supply chain management, which has resulted in great interests in remanufacturing operations and the sustainability of logistics in supply chain management [7,8]. Reverse logistics, which is defined as the process of planning, implementing, and controlling the efficient and cost-effective flow of raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods, and related information from the point of consumption to the point of origin for the purpose of recapturing value or proper disposal [9]. The recovered products can be redelivered to the customer zones to be sold again
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