Track: Sustainability in Supply Chain, Enterprise Operations and Strategies including Food Supply Chain

Abstract

Reverse Supply Chain is described as an initiative that plays an important role in the global supply chain for those who seek environmentally responsible solutions for their end-of-life products. The relative economic and environmental benefits of reverse supply chain are influenced by costs and emissions during collection, transportation, recovery facilities, disassembly, recycling, remanufacturing, and disposal of unrecoverable components. The design of reverse supply chain network takes into account social, economic and environmental objectives. This research addresses the design of reverse supply chain that is also sensitive to the carbon policies under the three common regulatory policies, strict carbon caps, carbon tax, and carbon cap-and-trade. CO₂ emissions and total profit are integrated using a multi-criteria decision making model. In this research, a mixed integer linear programming model of reverse supply chain with full valuation of emissions is considered to determine the optimal flow of parts among multiple remanufacturing centers that will maximize the total profit with less CO₂ emissions, based on actual sites in the Boston area. Numerical example illustrates different policies and their impact on the costs and the effectiveness of emission reduction.