Comparing inventory policies for closed-loop supply chain using simulation-based optimization

Abstract

Sustainable development principles lead to new challenges for supply chains management. To cope with these new challenges, one of the answers is to develop new activities related to reverse logistic which aim at recovered product from customer to valorization facilities (disassembly, recycling, remanufacturing …). These activities contribute to reduce use of new materials and negative impact of end-of-life products but they also generate more complex information and material flows. In this context, inventory control of return product and new product is a critical issue. New inventory control policies have to be developed to manage both return and new product supply. In this paper, a supply chain model based on simulation and multi-objective optimization is proposed to determine best control policies and their parameters for multi-echelon closed-loop supply chain.