Disruption management for a remanufacturer with dual collection channels

Abstract

ABSTRACT Disruptions caused by many factors, such as epidemics and policy uncertainties, affect the recycling of used products. This paper investigates a closed-loop supply chain where a remanufacturer collects from customers (online channel) directly or a third party (offline channel). When collection channel disruptions happen, the remanufacturer can close the disrupted channel or implement a delay strategy. The results show that no matter with or without the delay strategy, disruptions are always harmful, and the online disruption causes more damage than the offline disruption. Furthermore, the delay strategy is always better for the remanufacturer. However, with the delay strategy and customer transferring, the online disruption may damage less, and we surprisingly find that the online disruption may increase recycled quantity and firms’ profits when with high transfer ratio; moreover, the complete online disruption may perform better than partial one; finally, the hybrid remanufacturing strategy can alleviate the damage of offline disruption.