A Game Theoretic Approach for Eco-Design and Remanufacturing Considering Take-Back Policy

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations for this interesting work. It is an interesting analyse.

I have some suggestions for you:

1. Literature review, line 83, should be on the next page.

2. Please check the space between line, foe exemple between lines 167-171, 173-178, 188-190, 281-284, 346-348, 376-378, 386-390,

3. You have used several times the following phrase " The manufacturer maximizes a profit can be presented as follows:" , I think it should be "The manufacturer maximizes a profit which can be presernted as follows: " ex. line 209

4. Please mark the regions A1, A2 and A3 in figure 1. The explanations are a little ambiguos in lines 346-349.

5. Line 564, I think it should be "Hitchcock, D."

Author Response

First, thanks for your positive and useful comments of our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript according your comments, and detailed corrections are listed below: Point 1: Literature review, line 83, should be on the next page. Response 1: Thank you for pointing out our mistake. We are so sorry for ignoring this problem. According this comment, we check the whole manuscript and find some similar problems in other lines. Finally, we get rid of this problem by fixing formats. Point 2: Please check the space between line, for example between lines 167-171, 173-178, 188-190, 281-284, 346-348, 376-378, 386-390. Response 2: Thanks for your advice. We check the setting about the space between lines in the whole manuscript and find the space between lines is a fixed value (i.e., 13 bounds). The space between some lines is wider than other lines due to formulae in these lines. We try to solve this problem by setting other relevant items about the space between lines. Finally, the problems of most lines have been solved, but few lines containing fractions still do not be completely solved. Further, we will turn to professional editor. Point 3: You have used several times the following phrase “The manufacturer maximizes a profit can be presented as follows:”, I think it should be “The manufacturer maximizes a profit which can be presented as follows:” ex. line 209. Response 3: Thanks for your advice. It is useful to optimize language details of the manuscript. We add “which” in the sentences that have the same problem in the line 212, 221, 241, 252, 272, 277, 292 and 297 of the modified manuscript. Point 4: Please mark the regions A1, A2 and A3 in figure 1. The explanations are a little ambiguous in lines 346-349. Response 4: Thank you for pointing out our problem. We add a legend to explain the regions A1, A2 and A3 in figure1. Then we modify the ambiguous description due to inaccurate explanations which is displayed below (from line 348 to 354): Based on the observation from Figure 1, we divide eco-design coefficient domain into three regions. We name the region on the left of min be , the region between min and max be , and the region on the right of max be . Specifically, if (i.e., the situation at Figure 1), is the upper bound of the region and the lower bound of the region . is the upper bound of the region and the lower bound of the region . By the same logic, the bound values of regions are min and max when . Point 5: Line 564, I think it should be “Hitchcock, D.” Response 5: Thank you for pointing out this mistake. We are so sorry for our carelessness. We modify this mistake and check the whole reference. Finally, thank you for this review again. Your positive comments encourage us, especially to the youngest author who wrote this manuscript and had been failing in the past. Meanwhile, we improve the quality of this manuscript by your careful comments. Each author will continue the higher academic enthusiasm in the future due to your approval.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is very well written and really adds value to the literature. Congratulations for delivering such a good paper. However there are some minor aspects that need to be addressed:

I am missing a discussions section where authors compare their results with previous findings of the literature in order to better and more clear highlight the novelty of their research;

In my opinion it should be "Conclusions" and not "Conclusion".

I would expect that authors extend the "Conclusions" section by highlighting how the paper adds value to the literature, i.e. in the introduction they speak of Stackelberg, but do not come back at the theoretical implications in arguing / developing this idea.

Own study "limitations" and own study "future research perspective" are not very well highlighted. I think that authors should try to be more accurate on this sections, so that their paper is more valuable to the international literature. 

Congratulations for the very good work.  

Author Response

First, thanks for your positive and useful comments of our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript according your comments, and detailed corrections are listed below:

Point 1: I am missing a discussions section where authors compare their results with previous findings of the literature in order to better and more clear highlight the novelty of their research.

Response 1: Thank you for pointing out our problem. According this comment, we extend the last paragraph of this literature to highlight the novelty of our research, which is displayed below (from 144 to 153):

Our study extends the existing literature in three ways. First, our study considers a system including a government implementing the take-back policy of penalty or subsidy and a manufacturer responsible for collecting his used-products. Second, from the government’s standpoint, we further characterize the optimal penalty or subsidy and analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of the take-back policy. Third, we simultaneously identify the decision of eco-design or remanufacturing for a manufacturer, based on which we provide a set of guidelines in practical managerial recommendations for governments and manufacturers. In this literature, there is not been research into the subject that the effect of regulation policy of take-back penalty or subsidy on a manufacturer’s production strategy choice of eco-design and remanufacturing has not been studied to date.

Point 2: In my opinion it should be “Conclusions” and not “Conclusion”.

Response 2: Thanks for your advice. We change the headline of Section 6 from “Conclusion” to “Conclusions”.

Point 3: I would expect that authors extend the “Conclusions” section by highlighting how the paper adds value to the literature, i.e. in the introduction they speak of Stackelberg, but do not come back at the theoretical implications in arguing/developing this idea.

Response 3: Thanks for your advice. According this comment, we extend the first paragraph of Conclusions to highlight the value of our research to the previous literature, which is displayed below (from 467 to 472):

We consider regulatory forces firstly take part in the decisions of two take-back policies, which is less studied in the past. Under different policies, producers’ strategy selections also present a more complex response mechanism, which differs from the literature that we reviewed in Section 2. Our findings add to the previous literature about the take-back regulation question in terms of modeling and practical managerial recommendations.

Point 4: Own study “limitations” and own study “future research perspective” are not very well highlighted. I think that authors should try to be more accurate on this section, so that their paper is more valuable to the international literature.

Response 4: Thanks for your advice. According this comment, we rewrite the last paragraph of Section 6 to highlight the limitations and future research perspective of our research, which is displayed below (from 490 to 495):

Our work also has some limitations. For manufacturers, we consider the recycle processing cost as a negative factor for profits. It means that manufacturers are incurred costs by recycle processing collected products. However, some examples show that manufacturers may obtain profits higher than costs from recycle processing, which we ignore this point. Moreover, the government also can implement the joint penalty-subsidy policy to regulate the take-back behaviors of manufacturers. It is an interesting future research direction that models above considerations in more depth.

Finally, thank you for this review again. Your positive comments encourage us, especially to the youngest author who wrote this manuscript and had been failing in the past. Meanwhile, we improve the quality of this manuscript by your careful comments. Each author will continue the higher academic enthusiasm in the future due to your approval.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for your interesting work. The presentation reflects the present state of knowledge. The text is easy to understand by scientists in other disciplines. The paper is very well structured. The Introduction section is good, in this section the authors presents clearly the objectives and the main contributions of the study. The authors had provided sufficient background and include relevant references. The model is adequately described. The results are clearly presented. The conclusions are supported by the results. Authors discus the implications of their findings in the research field.

Author Response

Point 1: Thank you for your interesting work. The presentation reflects the present state of knowledge. The text is easy to understand by scientists in other disciplines. The paper is very well structured. The Introduction section is good, in this section the authors presents clearly the objectives and the main contributions of the study. The authors had provided sufficient background and include relevant references. The model is adequately described. The results are clearly presented. The conclusions are supported by the results. Authors discuss the implications of their findings in the research field.

Response 1: Thanks for your positive comments of our manuscript. Your positive comments encourage us, especially to the youngest author who wrote this manuscript and had been failing in the past. Meanwhile, we improve the quality of this manuscript by each reviewer’s careful comments. Each author will continue the higher academic enthusiasm in the future due to your approval. Thank you for this review again.