Sustainable reverse logistic network design for end-of-life use-case study

Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA

^* Corresponding author: cinarsuna@yahoo.com

Received: 29 November 2018
Accepted: 20 June 2019

Abstract

Due to the increased interests in environmental issues along with stringent environmental legislation and regulations, companies start taking a fresh look at the impact on their reverse logistic activties on the environment. This paper is an example of the recovery of valuable material that can be recycled/recovered or remanufactured at the end of product useful life by designing an effective reverse logistics network. In this study, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model is proposed to determine a long-term strategy for end-of-life (EOL). The mathematical model not only takes into account the minimization of system operating costs, but also considered minimization of carbon emissions related to the transportation and processing of used products. Therefore, the objective in this model was to minimize the transportation and operating cost as well as minimizing environmental effects these activities. The results of this study show the trade-off between the costs and carbon emissions, and cost effectiveness for improving environmental performance, all of which have great practical implication on decision-making of network configurations a reverse logistics system. The proposed model is validated by examining a case study from wind turbine (WT) sector.