Reverse Channel Research Articles

Analysis of activities that make up reverse logistics processes: proposition of a conceptual framework

Goal: The need to discuss reverse logistics processes with a detailed and analytical approach, aiming at improving the reverse channel efficiency is notorious in the literature. Therefore, this research aimed to analyze and describe in detail the activities that make up the reverse logistics processes and, in addition, to propose a conceptual framework for a better understanding and definition of RL processes. . Design / Methodology / Approach: This was achieved through a systematic review, which considered 3.517 papers, analyzing the RL concepts, definitions and objectives, as well as identifying its processes and activities. The activities were categorized as information (I-RL process) or materials (M-RL process) related. Results: This research provides an entire RL activities blueprint. This approach promotes greater transparency, allowing to identify stages most impacted on the reverse channels, besides standardizing logistical procedures and also allowing to insert control points for measuring performance. Limitations of the investigation: It is possible for a paper that focuses on one of the activities of the framework not to have been shown during the database if it doesn’t mention the keywords “reverse logistics”, “green logistics” and “sustainable logistics”. Practical implications: The concepts of reverse logistics activities presented in the framework can be implemented in reverse supply chains, serving as a basis for organizational strategies for managers involved with such processes. Originality / Value: The authors of this paper believe that the results achieved can greatly contribute to the expansion of debates in the RL area, as well as serve as a basis for managers involved with RL processes.

Investigating a green supply chain with product recycling under retailer's fairness behavior

<p style='text-indent:20px;'>Due to the rapid increment of environmental pollution and advancement of society, recently many manufacturing firms have started greening their products and focusing on product remanufacturing. The retailing firms are also taking several efforts for marketing those products and thinking more about the fairness of the business. Keeping this in mind, this study investigates the effect of recycling activity and the retailer's fairness behavior on pricing, green improvement, and marketing effort in a closed-loop green supply chain. In the forward channel, the manufacturer sells the green product through the retailer while in the reverse channel, either the manufacturer or the retailer or an independent third-party collects used products. The centralized model and six decentralized models are developed depending on the retailer's fairness behavior and/or product recycling. The optimal results are derived and compared analytically. The analytical results are verified by exemplifying a numerical example. A restitution-based wholesale price contract is developed to resolve the channel conflicts and coordinate the supply chain. Our results reveal that (ⅰ) the manufacturer never selects the third-party as a collector of used products under fair-neutral retailer, (ⅱ) the fairness behavior of the retailer improves her profitability but it diminishes the manufacturer's profit, and (ⅲ) if the manufacturer does not pay much transfer price, then the collection through the third-party is preferable to the fair-minded retailer.</p>

Pricing and Production Decisions for New and Remanufactured Products

Remanufacturing widely exists in production activities. Two different game models are involved while considering reverse channels: (1) In Model P, the manufacturer provides new and remanufactured products to two retailers. New products are sold through an online platform (retailer R1), while remanufactured products are sold in offline physical stores (retailer R2) in a decentralized scenario. (2) In Model C, the manufacturer provides new and remanufactured units to only one retailer (retailer R) that operates both online and offline channels in a centralized scenario. This research showed that a manufacturer’s profitability and industry profits in Model P were higher than those in Model C from the perspective of economic performance; the sum of the profits of both retailers in Model P was worse than the profits of the retailer in Model C. Moreover, Model P was found to be greener than Model C from the perspective of environmental sustainability. From a social viewpoint, Model P had a higher consumer surplus than Model C; the higher the cost of distributing a remanufactured unit, the more disadvantageous the model to the consumers.

RFARN: Retinal vessel segmentation based on reverse fusion attention residual network.

Accurate segmentation of retinal vessels is critical to the mechanism, diagnosis, and treatment of many ocular pathologies. Due to the poor contrast and inhomogeneous background of fundus imaging and the complex structure of retinal fundus images, this makes accurate segmentation of blood vessels from retinal images still challenging. In this paper, we propose an effective framework for retinal vascular segmentation, which is innovative mainly in the retinal image pre-processing stage and segmentation stage. First, we perform image enhancement on three publicly available fundus datasets based on the multiscale retinex with color restoration (MSRCR) method, which effectively suppresses noise and highlights the vessel structure creating a good basis for the segmentation phase. The processed fundus images are then fed into an effective Reverse Fusion Attention Residual Network (RFARN) for training to achieve more accurate retinal vessel segmentation. In the RFARN, we use Reverse Channel Attention Module (RCAM) and Reverse Spatial Attention Module (RSAM) to highlight the shallow details of the channel and spatial dimensions. And RCAM and RSAM are used to achieve effective fusion of deep local features with shallow global features to ensure the continuity and integrity of the segmented vessels. In the experimental results for the DRIVE, STARE and CHASE datasets, the evaluation metrics were 0.9712, 0.9822 and 0.9780 for accuracy (Acc), 0.8788, 0.8874 and 0.8352 for sensitivity (Se), 0.9803, 0.9891 and 0.9890 for specificity (Sp), area under the ROC curve(AUC) was 0.9910, 0.9952 and 0.9904, and the F1-Score was 0.8453, 0.8707 and 0.8185. In comparison with existing retinal image segmentation methods, e.g. UNet, R2UNet, DUNet, HAnet, Sine-Net, FANet, etc., our method in three fundus datasets achieved better vessel segmentation performance and results.

Ant Colony Approach for Optimizing a Multi-stage Closed-Loop Supply Chain with a Fixed Transportation Charge

Reverse logistics (RL) network can be adequately planned and implemented to gain additional benefits such as maximizing customer satisfaction and a positive image of the business organization, even though most distribution networks are not equipped with reverse channels to deal with the return of merchandise. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to develop a new mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) mathematical model with a single-objective, single-product, multi-stage closed-loop supply chain network design (CLSC ND), considering the fixed transportation charge in the distribution network that has been neglected in the recently published papers in the field of CLSC ND. Since such network design challenges belong to the class of NP-hard problems, an algorithm based on ant colony optimization (ACO) is proposed to design a multi-stage RL network with fixed transportation cost and variable cost for the routes. Four network characteristics of different sizes were designed, and 30 instances were randomly generated for each network characteristic to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. The computational analysis of the results shows the high-quality effectiveness of the proposed ACO algorithm compared with the exact results.

Design of the reverse channel for the third-party remanufacturing considering consumer education

Different stakeholders pay more attention to consumer education for remanufacturing. They expect to promote the advancement of the remanufacturing industry by increasing the number of consumers willing to pay for remanufactured products. In the context of consumer education, this paper investigates the influence of different collection and remanufacturing capabilities on the reverse channel designs. The results show that increased consumer education makes the OEM partially forgo the remanufacturing right and more focus on the control of the collection process of reverse channels. We further explore the impact of consumer education on different stakeholders. We find that consumer education significantly improves individual profits and supply chain profit. However, for consumers, the temperate consumer education is all-around desirable, and excessive consumer education will reduce consumer surplus. For the environment, only when the environmental friendliness of RPs is relatively high, improving consumer education will reduce the environmental impact. Furthermore, we also examine the reverse channel designs from multiple criteria and discover that profitability, consumers, and environmental goals can be consistent under certain conditions. Our study provides new insights for the design of reverse channels in the context of consumer education.

Modelling the effects of ultrasonic sonification on reverse osmosis feed channel temperature

This paper investigates approximations of the relationship between fluid temperature and sonification within cross-flow reverse osmosis modules, as part of a broader investigation of ultrasonic fouling mitigation for small-industrial-scale reverse osmosis systems. Two discrete models approximating the temperature distributions within imperfectly thermally insulated channels subject to diffusion and axial flow were developed and compared. One model neglects the effects of temperature on diffusion while the other explicitly accounts for these effects. Neglecting temperature effects on diffusion allows for the decoupling of the mass transfer and heat transfer problems. An analytical solution to the mass transfer problem is adapted from existing literature for use in the de-coupled case. The second model accounts for the coupling effects by solving the heat and mass transfer problems concurrently. Both models require the flow properties at the channel inlet as inputs. A simulation using parameters representative of a typical small-scale industrial spiral-wound reverse osmosis module showed effectively identical temperature distribution predictions in both models, despite slight differences in their permeate flux predictions.

MEMS Vaporazing Liquid Microthruster: A Comprehensive Review

The interest in developing efficient nano and pico-satellites has grown in the last 20 years. Secondary propulsion systems capable of serving specific maneuvers are an essential part of these small satellites. In particular, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Vaporizing Liquid Microthrusters (VLM), using water as a propellant, represent today a smart choice in terms of simplicity and cost. In this paper, we first propose a review of the international literature focused on MEMS VLM development, reviewing the different geometries and heating solutions proposed in the literature. Then, we focus on a critical aspect of these micro thrusters: the presence of unstable phenomena. In particular, the boiling instabilities and reverse channel flow substantially impact the MEMS VLMs’ performance and limit their applicability. Finally, we review the research focused on the passive and active control of the boiling instabilities, based on VLM geometry optimization and active heating strategies, respectively. Today, these ones represent the two principal research axes followed by the scientific community to mitigate the drawbacks linked to the use of MEMS VLMs.

Gender equality, growth, and how a technological trap destroyed female work

ABSTRACT Development economists have long studied the relationship between gender equality and economic growth. More recently, economic historians have taken an overdue interest. We sketch the pathways within the development literature that have been hypothesized as linking equality for women to rising incomes, and the reverse channels – from higher incomes to equality. We describe how the European Marriage Pattern literature applies these mechanisms, and we highlight problems with the claimed link between equality and growth. We then explain how a crucial example of technological unemployment for women – the destruction of hand spinning during the British Industrial Revolution – contributed to the emergence of the male breadwinner family. We show how this family structure created household relationships that play into the development pathways, and outline its persistent effects into the twenty-first century.

Manufacturer’s Collaborative Business Strategy with Two Different Reverse Channels in a Closed-Loop Supply Chain

Reuse of products has become increasingly critical to reduce manufacturing costs and revitalize the new product market. With two different investment perspectives, manufacturers cooperate with retailers and recyclers to collect products from customers. By investing in the retailer, manufacturers gain an opportunity to sell new products, whereas by investing in the recycler, manufacturers can reduce production costs through remanufacturing. Therefore, manufacturers must determine the appropriate investment strategies to be applied to the two channels by analyzing the trade-offs between these opportunities. For this purpose, we discuss three investment strategies: Revenue-Sharing Investment, Direct Subsidy per Unit Returned Cartridge, and Hybrid Investment. The system dynamics model is used to construct scenarios of various investment strategies used by the manufacturer with the collection partners and analyze the corresponding changes in the revenues of the manufacturer. The results indicate that the application of the revenue-sharing strategy and the hybrid strategy to support retailers and recyclers is effective in increasing manufacturer profit. More specifically, by considering the hybrid investment strategy of revenue-sharing investment and the direct subsidy per unit returned cartridge for the recycler, the manufacturer can simultaneously avoid excess investment by the recycler and promote return activities through the recycler.

Experimental and Numerical Study on Air Flow Behavior for a Novel Retractable Reverse Circulation Drill Bit of Casing-while-Drilling (CwD)

A reverse circulation Down-The-Hole (DTH) hammer drill bit in Casing-while-Drilling (CwD) processes is designed and applied to drilling under complicated formation. The drill bit is a special retractable drill bit with an exclusive reverse circulation gas channel. Using numerical simulations and experiments, the influence of the gas channel structure parameters of the drill bit, including the inner jet nozzles, flushing nozzles, suction channel, and other parameters, on its reverse circulation performance is analyzed, and the optimal gas channel structure parameters of the drill bit are determined to improve the reverse circulation effect. The results show that the flushing nozzles and inner jet nozzles have an important influence on entrainment performance. The entrainment rate η decreases as the flushing nozzle diameter increases and decreases as the inner jet nozzle diameter increases. An increase in the suction channel diameter can improve the reverse circulation effect of the drill bit. The spiral slot drill bit is more conducive to air being sucked into the central channel in the form of spiral flow, so it can improve the entrainment performance. The entrainment rate η can reach 23.4% with the optimum structured drill bit.

Numerical investigation of flow field around T-shaped spur dyke in a reverse-meandering channel

Abstract In this paper, the flow characteristics around T-shape spur dyke situated in the reverse meandering channel with a rigid bed is simulated using renormalization group (RNG) turbulence model with ANSYS 2018 Fluent software. To solve the model in 3D ways we used Navier-Stroke's equation based on the principle of conservation of mass and momentum within a moving fluid. For studying the flow characteristics, computational fluid dynamics were applied with all geometric parameters and the turbulence was simulated using (RNG) equations of model. In this simulation, the structured meshes were used with different diameters and diameters of meshes are high at the exit channel for obtaining accuracy in the result. In this study, we mainly focus on the effect of Froude number on flow pattern and several other characteristics like velocity distribution, flow separation, bed-shear-stress distribution. The final result of this research work is compared with the condition when no structure is present in the channel.

Valveless Piezoelectric Pump with Reverse Diversion Channel

In order to reduce backflow and improve output performance, a valveless piezoelectric pump with a reverse diversion channel was produced. The channel was designed based on the structure of the Tesla valve, which has no moving parts and can produce a high-pressure drop during reverse flow. Therefore, this special flowing channel can reduce the backflow of a valveless piezoelectric pump, which has the characteristic of one-way conduction. This work first revealed the relationship between the main structural parameters of the Tesla valve and the kinetic energy difference of liquid. Then, by using simulation software, the structure was verified to have the characteristics of effective suppression of the backflow of valveless piezoelectric pumps. Through setting multiple simulations, some important parameters that include the optimal height between the straight channels (H), the optimal angle (α) between the straight channel and the inclined channel, as well as the optimal radius (R) of the channel were confirmed. Finally, a series of prototypes were fabricated to test the output performance of this valveless piezoelectric pump. Comparing the experimental results, the optimal parameters of the Tesla valve were determined. The results suggest that when the parameters of the Tesla valve were H = 8 mm, α = 30°, and R = 3.4 mm, the output performance of this piezoelectric pump became best, which had a maximum flow rate of 79.26 mL/min with a piezoelectric actuator diameter of 35 mm, an applied voltage of 350 Vp-p, and a frequency of 28 Hz. The effect of this structure in reducing the return flow can be applied to fields such as agricultural irrigation.

Characteristics and Analyses of Strategic Factors in Reverse Channels of Açaí Pulp Production Waste in the Municipality of Castanhal/PA/ Caracterização e análise de fatores estratégicos nos canais reversos do resíduo da produção de polpa de açaí no município de Castanhal-PA

When disposed of inappropriately, waste from the production of açaí pulp, originating from the açaí production chain, is the cause of many environmental, economic, and social problems. In an attempt to minimize impact, Reverse Logistics is an instrument of economic, environmental, and social development characterized by actions aimed at the treatment and reuse of waste, which is managed and moved through Reverse Channels. Consulted bibliography defines Strategic Factors capable of promoting the structuring and organization of waste for environmentally appropriate destination by different production sectors. This research analyzed economic, environmental/ecological, technological, logistical, and legislative strategic factors of the reverse channels for açaí production waste in the city of Castanhal/PA, as this municipality’s açaí pulp production is nationally relevant. For this purpose, it was necessary first to characterize local reverse channels, since bibliographic and documentary research did not yield relevant information on the subject. Field research—consisting of in loco observation, structured interviews, and application of online questionnaires to agents directly and indirectly involved—was fundamental to characterize the object of this study. As a result, we achieved the characterization of reverse channels, as well as their logistical resources and the stakeholders involved, starting from the generation of waste through to transportation and final destination, ending our analysis with the main forms of waste revaluation. Our research also allowed the identification and analysis of strategic factors capable of influencing the structuring and maintenance of activities in this reverse chain.

Return migration and health outcomes in North Macedonia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold, namely, to investigate if living and working abroad influences the (subjective) health of return migrants and to understand if there are any spillovers of return-migrant members onto health conditions of the family members left behind. Design/methodology/approach To that end, this paper uses the DoTM (Development on the Move) Migration Survey 2009, as well a propensity score matching to address selectivity on observables and IV (instrumental variables) for the selectivity on unobservables. Findings Results suggest that when equalized on observables, return migrants have better health than non-migrants. However, the reverse causality channel (less healthy individuals are more inclined to return) works to attenuate the true effect of return migration on health. Results further suggest a positive spillover effect of return migration on the health of the family members left behind, being mainly driven by the work of remittances sent while abroad, and not by the returned wealth or by the health knowledge transfer. Originality/value This paper offers at least two novelty lines to contribute to the current sparse of knowledge. First, it is among the scarce papers, and probably the only quantitative one, to investigate the nexus between return migration and health outcomes. Second, it heavily dwells on the role of selectivity (both on observables and unobservables) in determining the true (causal) effect of return migration on health.

Optimizing price, quality and CSR investment under competing dual recycling channels in a sustainable closed-loop supply chain

This paper deals with pricing, product quality, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) investment, and used products collection strategy in a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) in which both the manufacturer and the retailer contribute to CSR. The market demand is affected by the retail price, product quality and CSR investments. We develop the centralized model (C-Model) and three decentralized models viz. MR-Model, MT-Model, and RT-Model depending on competition between any two of the manufacturer, the retailer and the third-party collector for collecting used products in the reverse channel. A joint revenue-and-cost sharing contract is proposed to address the channel coordination issue. Optimal decisions are derived and compared analytically to determine the most efficient decentralized model, and verified with the help of a real case study. Our study reveals that due to lower product quality, CSR investments, collection rate of used products and higher selling price, the MT-Model is disadvantageous to all channel individuals while the MR-Model gives the best performance under comparatively less competition. The proposed contract can coordinate the supply chain and provide more profit to both the manufacturer and the retailer than their decentralized profits. It is additionally noticed that higher CSR investment, cost savings and collection rate of used products lead to sustainable development.

A disease transmission inspired closed-loop supply chain dynamic model for product collection

This paper studies the reverse channel in dynamic closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) system which consists of manufacturers and retailers. Based on the dynamic CLSC model, we research the decisions and profits of CLSC members in different reverse channels that consider the quantitative characteristic of products. The results show that the optimal collection decisions for the given quantitative characteristic of products are diverse in different development levels of CLSC. Furthermore, we propose a transfer payment coordination mechanism based on Nash bargaining model to address the objective inconsistency between CLSC and its members. Moreover, we carry out the case study using the statistical data of Chinese new energy vehicles (NEVs). We show the robustness of results through the sensitivity analysis and offer some suggestions for the government and NEV managers in China.

Channel Strategies for the Two-Period Closed-Loop Supply Chain with E-Commerce

The aim of this paper is to choose the effective selling channel and reverse channel for a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) with the e-commerce. The authors formulated six single-selling and dual-selling channel two-period CLSC models in which the manufacturer manufactures new products in the first period and then collects used products by itself, outsourcing to or cooperating with the retailer in the second period. Some interesting and new insights obtained from comparison analysis and numerical experiments are as follows: (1) The leading manufacturer ought to add e-commerce channel, and customers’ e-commerce preference can increase the market demand, collecting rate, and manufacturer’s profit. (2) With the e-commerce channel and the retail channel, dual-collecting channel is the best for the manufacturer and system while the manufacturer collecting channel becomes the best when the collecting competition is relatively large. When the collecting competition exists, retailer collecting channel is the best for the retailer. (3) The market demand, collecting rate, the profits of all members and system will rise by increasing the remanufacturing level and discount coefficient.

Investigating different reverse channels in a closed-loop supply chain: a power perspective

This study investigates reverse channel choice for a bi-level closed-loop supply chain consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer. In the forward channel, the manufacturer sells the products through the retailer. We consider three collection channels to collect end-of-use products for the reverse channel: (1) retailer collection (R model), (2) manufacturer and retailer hybrid collection (MRH model), and (3) manufacturer and retailer competitive collection (MRC model). This study considers both manufacturer leadership and retailer leadership for all these three models. After obtaining the members' optimal decisions in the different models using backward induction, the models were applied to a vacuum cleaner company's data in Iran. A comparison of these models shows that the retailer leadership was better than the manufacturer leadership. From the manufacturer leadership perspective, the MRH model is the best one. From the retailer leadership perspective, the prices, the retailer collection rate, and the retail profit are the same in the R and MRH models, while the total collection rate and the total yield are more extensive in the MRH model than in the R model. The MRH model is better than the MRC model at any competition intensity. Moreover, this study indicates that the range of competition intensity between two collection channels in which the MRC model outperforms the R model is different under the retailer leadership and the manufacturer leadership. The results of this study can be used as a reference for reverse channel selection. Finally, we perform a sensitivity analysis for the model parameters.

Fluctuation theorems from Bayesian retrodiction.

Quantitative studies of irreversibility in statistical mechanics often involve the consideration of a reverse process, whose definition has been the object of many discussions, in particular for quantum mechanical systems. Here we show that the reverse channel very naturally arises from Bayesian retrodiction, in both classical and quantum theories. Previous paradigmatic results, such as Jarzynski's equality, Crooks' fluctuation theorem, and Tasaki's two-measurement fluctuation theorem for closed driven quantum systems, are all shown to be consistent with retrodictive arguments. Also, various corrections that were introduced to deal with nonequilibrium steady states or open quantum systems are justified on general grounds as remnants of Bayesian retrodiction. More generally, with the reverse process constructed on consistent logical inference, fluctuation relations acquire a much broader form and scope.