Recycling/Production and Incentive-Penalty Strategies in Closed-Loop Supply Chains under Remanufacturing Policies
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Title: Recycling/Production and Incentive-Penalty Strategies in Closed-Loop Supply Chains under Remanufacturing Policies
Research summary:
The present investigation examines a hybrid manufacturing/remanufacturing system that operates in a multi-period closed-loop setting, which is subject to remanufacturing policies that include carbon tax and incentive-penalty schemes. The research accounts for the differing carbon emissions between new and remanufactured products and analyzes the optimal recycling and production strategies for enterprises, based on two quality distributions, namely exponential and normal distributions. Further, the study assesses the government's incentive and penalty amounts allocated for various quality levels of recycled products, thereby substantiating the robustness of the variable quality distribution.
While the paper is well-crafted, there are a few points that need to be incorporated to further enhance the quality of the article.
1. In section, the Abstract should be written due to some essential points such as research purposes, research methods, research contents, and research effects, otherwise, the innovation and necessity of the manuscript will not be reflected effectively. So, authors are directed to rewrite the abstract section in the light of mentioned guidelines.
2. Although authors have mentioned the research questions in a general way in the introduction section however; the research questions need to be categorically mentioned as Question 1 and Question 2 in the introduction section so that the research agenda is further clear for the reader.
3. Authors are directed to provide a comparison table clearly stating the summary of other researches and contribution of this one.
4. Research question mentioned in the introduction section, must be quoted accordingly in the result and discussion section comprehensively.
5. A separate section should result in limitations of this study and its possible future research avenues.
English grammar and English rephrasing should be checked thoroughly in the manuscript.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Interesting paper. The reading is sometime difficult and the summary introduction provided for GA and PSO could be probably shortened. It seems quite evident that without incentives the remanufacturing has a small advantage and that quality plays a crucial role in the overall balancing. So investigating this aspect deserve attention. On the other side it would be interesting to stress more this complicate balance in the discussion and conclusions. Industrial sustainability needs to be approached with consistent practices and cannot be sustained forever by incentives. Also the penalties should be carefully evaluated since they reduce the overall competitiveness of an industrial sector when not properly calibrated over a reasonable transition timeframe. I'd like to read these considerations after the experimental campaign since the focus of such papers isn't in the fancy application of GA/PSO but in the clarification of these very complex balances between the existing economic supply-chain players.
Very good english with only some mistypes.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper studies the optimal recycling and production (manufacturing and remanufacturing) strategies under varying returned product quality and the government's subsidy policies. Overall, the paper is well-written, and the content is substantial. This study adds to the broad literature on sustainable supply chain management. To enhance the quality of this paper, I recommend the authors revise the manuscript for the items below:
1- Line 153: Expand R&D as Research & Development, the first time that acronym appears in the paper.
2- Figure 1: In that Figure, correct the typo as "Serviceable"
3- The symbol phi in the equation on line 191 and the one on line 193 are different. Please correct.
4- To eliminate confusion, can the authors use the superscript, say, "E" for exponential and, say, "N" for normal distribution for equations 1 through 4? For example, VE1 for Eqn (1), VN2 for Eqn (4) etc.
5- Add a justification, just before Section 3.2., for why only Exponential and Normal distributions are used and how do these fare with reality.
6- In Table 1, the number of remanufacturing periods and the number of manufacturing periods are demoted by r and m, respectively. But in lines 254 & 255 (and in the remainder of the manuscript), those variables are denoted as m and n, respectively. Please fix these notational typos, throughout the whole manuscript and maintain consistency. E.g., on line 281, should it be (q, T, m, n) or (q, T, r, m)? Perhaps it's best to revisit Table 1.
7- Similar to item 4 above, you could have it as ATCE for Eqn (13) and ATCN for Eqn (14).
8- In essence, the problem is to minimize the total cost function ATC over four decision variables: q, T, r, and m. What are the accompanying constraints? Allude to them in a paragraph.
9- Justify, why the solution method is reduced to using genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization. Moreover, at the start of Section 5, convince the reader why an analytical solution (using calculus, second-order conditions etc.) was not utilized in this paper. If so, why closed-form solutions do not exist?
10- Line 637: The expression "more optimal" is awkward; please revise.
11- Because the authors employed algorithms that do not necessarily guarantee optimality, there should be some discussion on the "quality of solutions" in terms of the optimality gap. Please include a paragraph on this in Section 7.
12: Line 191 and the rest of the manuscript: I find the decision variable q termed as "optimal" quality level problematic because it is not. Therefore, please remove the word "optimal" from that definition wherever it is mentioned in the paper. However, if the study had had found a closed-form solution for the optimal quality level, that could be denoted by q* .
Overall, the write-up of the manuscript is good. There a re few typos that can be easily fixed during the revision stage.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Paper can be accepted in its current form as authors have addressed mentioned concerns.
Careful English proofread is mandatory before final publication.
Author Response
First of all, we express our gratitude to all the reviewers for generously dedicating their valuable time and providing constructive comments. Moreover, we have proofread our manuscript to rectify any potential grammatical or spelling errors and ensure adherence to proper scientific English. Additionally, the revised manuscript has undergone thorough editing by a native English speaker, further refining its quality and readability.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper has improved but, I still have concerns about the following issues:
1- Please use your academic emails; hotmail.com, 163.com, etc. look very unprofessional and could damage the journal's reputation.
2- In Table 1, it should read as "Remanufacturing Carbon Emissions" not "Remanufactured..."
3- line 200 (elsewhere in the manuscript): Remove the word "optimal" from the definition of q; that is an incorrect representation. Define q simply as "average quality level of recycled products."
4- Figure 2: m=3, but r=3? Correct it as n=3, instead of r=3.
See my comments above
Author Response
First of all, we express our gratitude to all the reviewers for generously dedicating their valuable time and providing constructive comments. We have made revisions based on comments 1-4 and carefully reviewed the entire manuscript to rectify any similar issues. Moreover, we have proofread our manuscript to correct any potential grammatical or spelling errors and ensure adherence to proper scientific English. Additionally, the revised manuscript has undergone thorough editing by a native English speaker, further refining its quality and readability.
