Some investigations on multi commodity reverse logistics network modelling

Abstract

The efficient design of a product recovery network is one of the challenging issues in the recently emerged field of reverse logistics (RL). RL process forms a part of a company s total supply chain and it includes number of recovery options viz., Remanufacturing, Recycling, Refurbishing, Reuse, and Disposal. Of late, RL is gaining more importance due to the newer and stricter environmental regulations. One of the important means for organizations to differentiate themselves, as well as to increase profitability, in highly competitive environments, is the use of service management. In the context mentioned, Reverse Logistics Repair Service (RLRS) can be viewed as all of the activities required to move a commodity from point of use to point of reclamation and redistribution. Such a RLRS is characterized by, uncertainty in supplies, customer requirements, value recovery, multi-party coordination and lack of flexibility. That is, RL is always tied with inherent uncertainties and the recovery options pose many challenges to the practioners and researches alike. Reverse Logistics Networking (RLN) is the simultaneous coordination of various Reverse Logistics activities or processes to recover the value and to dispose the returns, starting from the end users back to the manufactures . The key benefits of RLNs are improved control and asset recovery, better information and supply chain visibility full tracking to ensure accurate information, income generation, efficient route planning returns collections matched with outbound deliveries. Most of the cited works in modelling deal with single product or commodity. Only a few studies have addressed the problem of flow of multi-commodities from return centers. In practical RL problems, especially in RLRS problems, dealing with more than one type of returned commodities is a norm rather than an exception. Besides the multi commodities nature of RLRS networks, another normal feature is the recovery of the returned commodity value in more than one stage.