An integrated green supply chain model with product recovery management towards a cleaner system

Abstract

In today's omnichannel environment, sustainability has become a requisite for doing clean and good business. The present paper studies a sustainable supply chain with a single vendor and a single buyer. The vendor administrates the production process and delivers the demanded lot to the buyer as per the single setup and multiple delivery policy. The buyer performs the first-hand inspection to separate the defectives from the received lot and return these secluded defectives to the vendor. Further, the vendor and buyer initiate a sustainable drive to make sure that less waste is dispatched in the environment. In this sustainable drive, the end customers can return the used products through a proper channel. Product recovery management is incorporated by performing the assembly of these defective and used products for a strong inspection that bifurcates these products into different categories viz. reworkable, reusable, recyclable, and disposable. The model also explores the effect of shortages, energy usage in production, and carbon emissions while producing, transporting, and disposing of the products. The order quantity, number of shipments, and size of shipments are optimized to maximize the total integrated turnover of the vendor and the buyer. The objective is to accomplish the 3 R's of waste management viz. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Such an approach ensures that less waste is being dispensed in the environment, carbon emissions are reduced, and revenue generation is increased. The study contributes by introducing a product recovery strategy to deal with defective and used merchandise. The paradigm of sustainability is highlighted via mathematical analysis concerning economic and environmental aspects. Further, to prove the viability of the present study, a comparison of the same with a traditional scenario is performed that showcases the preeminence of the developed study. Findings elucidate the positive effect of product recovery management techniques on the well-being of the environment and business.