A multi-objective approach for designing a tire closed-loop supply chain network considering producer responsibility

Carbon emission is a concern across the industry due to its environmental impact. In order to reduce carbon emissions, industry have to look not only at their processes but also in the generation of emissions in the whole supply chain that it belongs to. This is more necessary when various forms of carbon emissions policies are faced by the industry. The current focus on research is either in the economics of supply chain or mainly on the forward or reverse supply chains when it pertains to the carbon emissions. However, as lifecycle of the product is also becoming important, the isolated treatment of supply chains should be avoided for an integrated (forward and reverse) supply chain, also called the closed loop supply chain (CLSC). The complexity arises when the supply chain is faced with different kind of carbon policies implemented by the governments, for example, carbon tax, carbon cap, and carbon-cap and tax. The design of CLSC may change with the change in the carbon emission policy. In this research, a stochastic model is developed for the design of a CLSC by considering carbon emission policies. This work is one of the first attempts to understand the implication of carbon emission policy on the design of a CLSC. The model is applied to a sample case of aluminum industry with a life cycle assessment of emission.Our preliminary findings include:(1) When the more scenarios are taken into account, the total cost and emission would increase, because more uncertain information is considered in CSSC design.(2) Given the same carbon cap, in a broad sense, the amount of emission credit traded in market changes in line with the total emission. It indicates that the emission trading is determined by the actual emission rather than the carbon price, even the uncertain carbon price is considered. However, a higher emission does not always lead to a bigger amount of emission to be traded.(3) The network structure obtained by the deterministic formulation is not able to be easily adapted to changes in demand and supply.(4) In order to deal with the uncertain demand, the CLSC has to enlarge its handling capacity by using the facilities with a higher capacity or incorporating more facilities with the same function. With the same purpose, the supplier selection decisions are also changed associate the increasing scenarios.(5) The fuel of diesel is selected regardless of the scenarios. It means the current carbon price level would not motivate the firms to gain profit or reduce costs by employing future fuels in transportation. This conclusion is also proved by the further investigation when the total cost and emission are observed under decreasing cap. A further investigation reveals the transportation mode doesn't change when the carbon price increase from 9 to 234. Consequently, the future fuels would be attractive to firms only when the transportation price reduced or other policy environment changes, such as government subsidy. The efforts in reducing the transportation cost with future fuels have never ceased and the advanced technologies in automobile industry provide opportunity for green transportation promoters.

In order to analyze how different government mechanisms affect decisions in closed-loop supply chain with retailers' dual-channel structure, three game models were established. The result showed that when the government adopts the reward-penalty mechanism, too small reward-penalty parameter cannot achieve effective supervision and motivation; When the government adopts the processing fund mechanism, members' profits decrease in the forward supply chain while increase in the reverse supply chain; The reward-penalty mechanism has no effect on the product's price, but the processing fund mechanism will increase the product's price. What's more, the profit of members in the forward supply chain under reward-penalty mechanism is always better when compared with the processing fund mechanism. While in the reverse supply chain, the profit of members depends on the relative value of government's subsidy and reward-penalty parameter.

This paper aims to propose a theoretical framework of Third Party Logistics (3PLs) sustainable value added services in Closed Loop Supply Chains (CLSCs). CLSCs is a term to describe the combination concept of forward and reverse supply chain by which the integration of both channels could yield the company economic performance, social and environmental concerns. To date, there have been very minimal studies conducted in sustainable service offering especially from the 3PLs perspectives. It is expected the findings of the study can be used to ascertain specific value adding task in CLSCs to be offered by 3PLs to customers, which eventually could improve the existing 3PLs package of service offerings to customers and enjoy the customers satisfaction and loyalty. On the other hand, manufacturers can be more focus in producing good quality products to meet the present fast changing customers' demand.

Reverse supply chain (RSC) is an extension of the traditional supply chain (TSC) motivated by environmental requirements and economic incentives. TSC management deals with planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling a collection of organizations, activities, resources, people, technology, and information as the materials and products move from manufacturers to the consumers. Except for a short warranty period, TSC excludes most of the responsibilities toward the product beyond the point of sale. However, because of growing environmental awareness and regulations (e.g. product stewardship statute), TSC alone is no longer an adequate industrial practice. New regulations and public awareness have forced manufacturers to take responsibilities of products when they reach their end of lives. This has necessitated the creation of an infrastructure, known as RSC, which includes collection, transportation, and management of end-of-life products (EOLPs). The advantages of implementing RSC include the reduction in the use of virgin resources, the decrease in the materials sent to landfills and the cost savings stemming from the reuse of EOLPs, disassembled components, and recycled materials. TSC and RSC together represent a closed loop of materials flow. The whole system of organizations, activities, resources, people, technology, and information flowing in this closed loop is known as the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC). In RSC, the management of EOLPs includes cleaning, disassembly, sorting, inspecting, and recovery or disposal. The recovery could take several forms depending on the condition of EOLPs, namely, product recovery (refurbishing, remanufacturing, repairing), component recovery (cannibalization), and material recovery (recycling). However, neither the quality nor the quantity of returning EOLPs is predictable. This unpredictable nature of RSC is what makes its management challenging and necessitates innovative management science solutions to control it. In this chapter, we address the order-driven component and product recovery (ODCPR) problem for sensor-embedded products (SEPs) in an RSC. SEPs contain sensors and radio-frequency identification tags implanted in them at the time of their production to monitor their critical components throughout their lives. By facilitating data collection during product usage, these embedded sensors enable one to predict product/component failures and estimate the remaining life of components as the products reach their end of lives. In an ODCPR system, EOLPs are either cannibalized or refurbished. Refurbishment activities are carried out to meet the demand for products and may require reusable components. The purpose of cannibalization is to recover a limited number of reusable components for customers and internal use. Internal component demand stems from the component requirements in the refurbishment operation. It is assumed that the customers have specific remaining-life requirements on components and products. Therefore, the problem is to find the optimal subset and sequence of the EOLPs to cannibalize and refurbish so that (1) the remaining-life-based demands are satisfied while making sure that the necessary reusable components are extracted before attempting to refurbish an EOLP and (2) the total system cost is minimized. We show that the problem could be formulated as an integer nonlinear program. We then develop a hybrid genetic algorithm to solve the problem that is shown to provide excellent results. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the methodology.

A proposed multi-objective model for cellphone closed-loop supply chain optimization based on fuzzy QFD

Closed-loop supply chain network design for hazardous products with uncertain demands and returns

Product disposal penalty: Analysing carbon sensitive sustainable supply chains

On the base of the assumption that the recycled quantity of used products is affected by the interaction of recycling price and sales volume, this paper researches closed-loop supply chain's pricing and coordination, gives system members' optimal pricing and profits in decentralized decision and centralized decision and finds that reverse supply chain itself is in coordination and traditional forward supply chain is in incoordiantion under decentralized decision. Then it designs a revenue sharing contract which can coordinate closed-loop supply chain. At last, a numerical example is given to verify the conclusions drew in this paper.

Due to the complex nature of some products and the different quality of returns, in closed-loop supply chains there might be different types of reverse processes and reverse flows, including repaired, refurbished, remanufactured, or recycled goods. These reprocessed goods return to different echelons of the supply chain according to their quality, and the volume of each type of reverse flow (i.e. the returns share) may significantly vary between different supply chains, affecting the dynamic behaviour of the entire system. The aim of this work is to explore the impact of the volume of returns among multiple reverse flows in a closed-loop supply chain where each member can have its own reverse flow. We analyse a four-echelon closed-loop supply chain, where a collector is in charge of collecting and inspecting the returns and sending them to the different echelons depending on their quality. An agent-based simulation model considering different return rates, coefficient of variations for the forward lead times, and returns share is developed and evaluated in terms of bullwhip effect. We observe that considerable volume and medium–low quality of the returns enable bullwhip effect reduction in systems where returns are shared among all the members of the supply chain. However, in single reverse flow closed-loop supply chains, moderate volume and high quality of the returns are preferable to gain improvements both in terms of order and inventory variability. From a managerial point of view, we provide useful recommendations for companies adopting closed-loop.

Purpose This study introduces a multi-vaccine multi-echelon supply chain (MVMS) framework designed to ensure sustainable vaccine distribution during outbreaks. The framework aims to minimize the total costs of vaccine distribution and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to mitigate environmental impacts while maximizing job opportunities within the network. Design/methodology/approach Our proposed appraoch employs a multi-objective mixed-integer linear programming model. Findings The findings indicate that incorporating uncertainties related to demand and inspection errors significantly facilitates timely responses to unexpected shortages, fulfills the requirements of healthcare facilities, and enhances the supply chain’s resilience against future uncertainties. This study also explores managerial implications and suggests avenues for future research to further advance this field. Originality/value Existing literature on MVMS often relies on simplifying assumptions of perfect vaccines and primarily focuses on demand uncertainty. However, real-world supply chains are typically marked by imperfections, disruptions, and a variety of uncertainties beyond demand. In this work, we address several sources of parameter uncertainty, including demand variability, inspection errors, vaccine waste, and defective treatments rates to enhance the robustness of our model.

Designing a realistic ICT closed loop supply chain network with integrated decisions under uncertain demand and lead time

We observe that between the competitors of technology products, companies such as HP and Xerox or Apple and Google, one competitor (HP and Apple) manages the reverse supply chain to extract value profitably, while the other competitor (Xerox and Google) uses a third-party reverse logistics company to simply recycle consumer returns. In this chapter, we show that, under a given set of supply chain levers, the OEM’s approach to supply chain network design can significantly impact the profitability in the reverse supply chain over the product lifecycle. We propose an integrated multi-period optimization model called the product life cycle optimization model (PLCOM) to design the closed loop supply chain (CLSC) for the OEMs. The PLCOM is a mixed-integer linear program that consists of a demand model based on the extended-Bass’s diffusion model and a pricing model based on a realistic customer willingness to pay (WTP). The PLCOM is applied to a realistic case study using Apple’s iPhone 7 for a product life cycle of 8 years. We show that an integrated approach to designing the supply chain network by the OEMs is more profitable compared to a sequential approach.

Over the past years, closed-loop supply chains (CLSC) gained a considerable attention in both academia and industry due to environmental regulations and concerns about sustainability. Although various problems in CLSC’s are addressed by researchers, not much attention is given to the effects of closing the loop in supply chains. In this study, we propose a set of linear programming models for both forward and closed-loop supply chains to see the economic and environmental effects of closing the loop. In addition to the case where there is no emission regulation, we also study the carbon cap policy and compare the forward and closed-loop supply chains under this policy. Computational results bring two important insights to us. First, we see that there are instances in which closing the loop may bring significant cost and emission reductions. Second, we observe that it may be possible to work under lower carbon caps by closing the loop in supply chains.

Environmental issues and increasing global demand have led to calls for sustainable production and consumption. Products deemed insufficiently environmentally friendly are beginning to be removed from the market, and manufacturers must achieve social responsibility and economic benefits. However, in a conventional linear supply chain, an increase in sales volume directly leads to an increase in waste and resource consumption, resulting in a trade-off between the environment and the economy. Closed-loop supply chains resolve trade-offs, achieve corporate social responsibility, and enhance competitiveness. Closed-loop supply chains must recover used products with a high degree of uncertainty. Uncertainty in the quantity, quality, and timing of used products can cause serious problems such as the bullwhip effect in the dynamic behavior of the supply chain. This study aims to analyze the dynamic impact of used product uncertainty on a closed-loop supply chain and propose ways to deal with it. Products deteriorate with their use and eventually become worthless for recovery and remanufacturing. This study confirms that, even when there is no demand variability and lead time, the uncertainty of used products, especially qualitative uncertainty, causes large variability in the closed-loop supply chain. The results of the numerical example using the model proposed in this study show that the policy of limiting the quantity of remanufacturing can mitigate the variability. Furthermore, the appropriate limits vary depending on the characteristics of the product, such as its lifetime. This suggests the need to control the amount of remanufacturing for the sustainability of the closed-loop supply chain rather than remanufacturing as much as possible, to reduce environmental impact.

On supply chain coordination for false failure returns: A quantity discount contract approach