Sustainable product and supply chain design decisions under uncertainties

Abstract

Nowadays enterprises are forced to consider broader aspects while designing and manufacturing products. The scarcity of natural resources as well as stern environmental regulations have obliged enterprises to develop new products that can satisfy profit, people, and planet during its life cycle. In the last decade, many research efforts have incorporated supply chain and sustainability into product design. However, most of the studies provided deterministic based methodologies. Enterprises who intend to improve sustainability under various uncertainties couldn’t find an appropriate method. The method based on fuzzy set theory is proposed in this study to tackle the uncertainty of supply chain and highlight the sustainable design concepts considering product disassemblability, closed loop supply chain performance, and carbon footprint. A scooter company case study is presented to demonstrate the advantage of this methodology. Because the risk of impreciseness of data could be reduced, decision-makers only have to provide suitable regions to express the costs and lead-time instead of exact numbers. This method can support decision-makers to make the most sustainable decisions which contain both product and the closed loop supply chain design based on the concern of lead-time, cost, and carbon footprint. As a result, sustainable product and supply chain design under uncertainties can be addressed at the product design stage.