Co-Opetition Strategy for Remanufacturing the Closed-Loop Supply Chain Considering the Design for Remanufacturing
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper discussed the possibility of cooperation and mutual benefit between manufacturers and remanufacturers considering design for remanufacturing, so as to promote mutual benefit between manufacturers and remanufacturers, inspire manufacturers to promote design for remanufacturing and facilitate the development of remanufacturing. The topic of this research is interesting and related to practical applications. The authors are encouraged to continue with this research making the revisions suggested here.
(1) The introduction should be improved. Please strengthen the introduction section to explain what your main contribution so as to distinguish the gap of existing research. The significance of considering design for remanufacturing should be strengthened.
(2) In the section of numerical simulation, the reason for setting the parameters should be explained in detail.
(3) Conclusions should be condensed. The first two paragraph and 8.1 should be combined.
(4) Some new updated references should be added. For example:
[1] Zhu H , Zhu X , Ding L , et al. Decision and coordination analysis of extended warranty service in a remanufacturing closed-loop supply chain with dual price sensitivity under different channel power structures[J]. RAIRO - Operations Research, 2022, 56(3):1149-1166.
[2] Singh R . Determinants of Remanufacturing Adoption for Circular Economy: A Causal Relationship Evaluation Framework[J]. Applied System Innovation, 2022, 5.
(5) The academic English writing need be improved.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: This paper discussed the possibility of cooperation and mutual benefit between manufacturers and remanufacturers considering design for remanufacturing, so as to promote mutual benefit between manufacturers and remanufacturers, inspire manufacturers to promote design for remanufacturing and facilitate the development of remanufacturing. The topic of this research is interesting and related to practical applications. The authors are encouraged to continue with this research making the revisions suggested here.
Response 1: Thank you for your evaluation and recognition.
Point 2: The introduction should be improved. Please strengthen the introduction section to explain what your main contribution so as to distinguish the gap of existing research. The significance of considering design for remanufacturing should be strengthened.
Response 2: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. We have supplemented the main contribution of this paper at the end of the fourth paragraph of the introduction, and the remanufacturing design part in the third paragraph of the introduction. Please check the red part of the introduction for details.
Point 3:In the section of numerical simulation, the reason for setting the parameters should be explained in detail.
Response 3: This comment is very valuable. In this paper, the parameter values set in numerical simulation mainly refer to the related parameter settings of previous studies, while the processing methods in previous related literatures are similar to this one, such as literature [1] and literature [2]. We have supplemented these two references in the parameter part of numerical simulation. For information, please check Section 7, paragraph 1, highlighted in red.
[1] Sun H, Ye J, Hu J, et al. Research on the game strategies for the OEM and the remanufacturer under different decision structures. Chinese Journal of Management Science,2017,25(01):160-169.
[2]Xia X, Zhu Q. Study on the effect of design for remanufacturing on manufacturing/remanufacturing competition based on the outsourcing remanufacturing pattern. Journal of Management Sciences in China, 2019,22(09):97-112.
Point 4: Conclusions should be condensed. The first two paragraph and 8.1 should be combined.
Response 4: This comment is very valuable. We have simplified the conclusion and merged Sections 8.1 and 8.2 into the first two paragraphs. For details, please refer to the red section in Section 8.
Point 5: Some new updated references should be added. For example:
[1] Zhu H , Zhu X , Ding L , et al. Decision and coordination analysis of extended warranty service in a remanufacturing closed-loop supply chain with dual price sensitivity under different channel power structures[J]. RAIRO - Operations Research, 2022, 56(3):1149-1166.
[2] Singh R . Determinants of Remanufacturing Adoption for Circular Economy: A Causal Relationship Evaluation Framework[J]. Applied System Innovation, 2022, 5.
Response 5: Thank you very much for your advice. We have added these two references in the introduction and the literature review. Details are given in the first paragraph of the introduction and in the second paragraph of Section 2.1 in red.
Point 6:The academic English writing need be improved.
Response 6: We are grateful to your suggestions that improved our manuscript greatly. Based on your suggestions, we have revised the English writing expressions in this article.
Reviewer 2 Report
The theme of the paper is highly relevant to the current socio-economic problem, related to manufacturing and materials. Of course, to reduce the intensity of the depletion of natural resources the closed-loop supply chain is essential in the manufacturing sector.
The authors are also suggested to collect & include some recent literature on the handling of EoL products, which typically go for recycling. The authors can search with the following keywords in google scholar/Scopus/web of knowledge “Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing; design for remanufacturing; ”,
Wang, Hsiao-Fan, and Yen-Shan Huang. "A two-stage robust programming approach to demand-driven disassembly planning for a closed-loop supply chain system." International Journal of Production Research 51.8 (2013): 2414-2432.
Anil Kumar, Gulivindala, et al. "A multi-layered disassembly sequence planning method to support decision making in de-manufacturing." Sādhanā 46.2 (2021): 1-16.
Diallo, Claver, et al. "State of the art review of quality, reliability and maintenance issues in closed-loop supply chains with remanufacturing." International Journal of Production Research 55.5 (2017): 1277-1296.
Figure 1 is unclear, adjust the captions.
Section 5.2, the equations are directly placed with nomenclature (without any derivation/ explanation). If it is extracted from literature, Please cite the reference else state the procedure to generate the equation.
Please provide the units wherever applicable.
In section 7 , give the complete details of the product considered for numerical simulation.
Please justify the completeness of the method for other product variants.
Please specify the influence of the condition of the product after its EoL stage, before moving towards DFRem
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1:The theme of the paper is highly relevant to the current socio-economic problem, related to manufacturing and materials. Of course, to reduce the intensity of the depletion of natural resources the closed-loop supply chain is essential in the manufacturing sector.
Response 1: Thank you for your evaluation and recognition.
Point 2: The authors are also suggested to collect & include some recent literature on the handling of EoL products, which typically go for recycling. The authors can search with the following keywords in google scholar/Scopus/web of knowledge “Environmentally Conscious Manufacturing; design for remanufacturing; ”,
Wang, Hsiao-Fan, and Yen-Shan Huang. "A two-stage robust programming approach to demand-driven disassembly planning for a closed-loop supply chain system." International Journal of Production Research 51.8 (2013): 2414-2432.
Anil Kumar, Gulivindala, et al. "A multi-layered disassembly sequence planning method to support decision making in de-manufacturing." Sādhanā 46.2 (2021): 1-16.
Diallo, Claver, et al. "State of the art review of quality, reliability and maintenance issues in closed-loop supply chains with remanufacturing." International Journal of Production Research 55.5 (2017): 1277-1296.
Response 2: This comment is very valuable. We have added literature on EoL products to the text. The first paragraph of the introduction that is highlighted in red provides details.
Point 3: Figure 1 is unclear, adjust the captions.
Response 3: Thank you very much for your suggestions to improve our manuscript. We have carefully revised Figure 1 and changed the explanation text based on your ideas. In Figure 1 are specifics displayed.
Point 4: Section 5.2, the equations are directly placed with nomenclature (without any derivation/ explanation). If it is extracted from literature, Please cite the reference else state the procedure to generate the equation.
Response 4: This comment is very valuable. We have shown in the text that the derivation process is the same for all three sections. Details are given in Section 5.2 and in Section 5.3 of the second paragraph marked in red. We need to explain to the reviewers that both Section 5.2 and Section 5.3 have the same derivation process as Section 5.1. For example, the derivation process of Section 5.2 is to replace the notation of Section 5.1 with the notation of Section 5.2, again using the inverse induction method for the solution.
Point 5:Please provide the units wherever applicable.
Response 5: Many thanks to the experts for their questions. As suggested by the experts, the values of each parameter in Table 1 are not labeled with units, mainly because there are abstract parameters in the set of variables in the model of this paper, such as the remanufacturing design level , for which the scale units cannot be determined. In addition, this paper mainly refers to the parameter settings of previous studies, and the treatment in the previous related literature is similar to this paper without setting the corresponding units. Meanwhile, in future research, we will carefully consider the issue of the magnitude, especially the magnitude of the relevant abstract parameters, to further improve the research in this field.
Point 6: In section 7, give the complete details of the product considered for numerical simulation.
Response 6: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. In this paper, the parameter values in the numerical simulation are set mainly by referring to the relevant parameter settings in previous studies, and the treatment in previous related literature is similar to this paper, such as literature [1] and literature [2]. We have supplemented the parameter setting section with references. Details are given in the first red-labeled paragraph of Section 7.
[1] Sun H, Ye J, Hu J, et al. Research on the game strategies for the OEM and the remanufacturer under different decision structures. Chinese Journal of Management Science,2017,25(01):160-169.
[2]Xia X, Zhu Q. Study on the effect of design for remanufacturing on manufacturing/remanufacturing competition based on the outsourcing remanufacturing pattern. Journal of Management Sciences in China, 2019,22(09):97-112.
Point 7:Please justify the completeness of the method for other product variants.
Response 7: We are grateful to your suggestions that improved our manuscript greatly. The implications for manufacturers and remanufacturers have been added to the conclusion section as a result of your comments. For more details, see the second red-marked paragraph in Section 8.
Point 8:Please specify the influence of the condition of the product after its EoL stage, before moving towards DFRem
Response 8: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. We need to explain to the reviewers that this paper focuses on the competing game strategies between manufacturers and remanufacturers and does not consider the impact of the quality of end-of-life products on remanufactured designs for the time being. In future studies, we will carefully consider this effect and further improve the research in this area.
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper addresses an important subject that has been inadequately researched. Remanufacturing of discarded items rather than simply dumping or incinerating them could result in a considerable reduction in the amount of waste produced across the world. It is not clear that this analysis addresses all classes of remanufacturing or whether different classes will produce different results (for example does this apply to both plastic milk bottles and printer cartridges or even motor cars?). This needs to be stated clearly.
I found the Introduction extremely difficult to read and initially misunderstood the meaning of remanufacturing used in this paper (I thought it meant OEM type production). Section 2 is much clearer and soon put me right. It effectively makes the same points as the Introduction which could usefully be deleted and replaced with simple description of the problem that is being addressed. This would also have the advantage of removing most of the issues with the English used as they mainly occur in this section.
The conclusions also seemed to be a little confused and did not finish up with a clear statement of what had been achieved and how it could be used generally. The further work could be moved to before the conclusions as could the contribution. Much of the conclusions is a discussion of the results and could be labeled as such, and the conclusions should then refer back to a rewritten introduction to bring the reader back to the beginning.
The paper could be improved by being checked by a native English speaker as there are a number of malformed sentences (particularly in the Introduction) and words I did not recognize. CLSC is only defined after it had been used several times.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: This paper addresses an important subject that has been inadequately researched. Remanufacturing of discarded items rather than simply dumping or incinerating them could result in a considerable reduction in the amount of waste produced across the world. It is not clear that this analysis addresses all classes of remanufacturing or whether different classes will produce different results (for example does this apply to both plastic milk bottles and printer cartridges or even motor cars?). This needs to be stated clearly.
Response 1: Thank you for your insightful feedback and recommendation. Although we discuss the possibility of cooperation between manufacturers and remanufacturers and analyse the decision of the competing game between them in the context of remanufacturing design, we do not specify which field is implemented in this study. We will implement it in the numerical analysis section for specific fields and specific industries in future study.
Point 2: I found the Introduction extremely difficult to read and initially misunderstood the meaning of remanufacturing used in this paper (I thought it meant OEM type production). Section 2 is much clearer and soon put me right. It effectively makes the same points as the Introduction which could usefully be deleted and replaced with simple description of the problem that is being addressed. This would also have the advantage of removing most of the issues with the English used as they mainly occur in this section.
Response 2: We are grateful for your suggestions that improved our manuscript greatly. We have streamlined the introduction, especially the section on a brief description of the problem that is being addressed. The first and third paragraphs of the introduction with red labels provide details.
Point 3: The conclusions also seemed to be a little confused and did not finish up with a clear statement of what had been achieved and how it could be used generally. The further work could be moved to before the conclusions as could the contribution. Much of the conclusions is a discussion of the results and could be labeled as such, and the conclusions should then refer back to a rewritten introduction to bring the reader back to the beginning.
Response 3: Thanks for the valuable comment and suggestion. We have added management insights on manufacturers and remanufacturers in the conclusion section, in addition, we have rewritten the conclusion section to echo the questions in the introduction section. Please refer to Section 8, marked in red, for details.
Point 4: The paper could be improved by being checked by a native English speaker as there are a number of malformed sentences (particularly in the Introduction) and words I did not recognize. CLSC is only defined after it had been used several times.
Response 4: The comment is very important. We have revised the informal words. We have reorganized the language presentation of this paper and corrected the sentences with formatting errors. In addition, we need to explain to the reviewers that CLSC is only defined in the problem description section because this paper focuses on the game between manufacturers and remanufacturers regarding remanufacturing design and patent rights, and the possibility of cooperation between them, and the closed-loop supply chain is only to lead to remanufacturing design, which is not the focus of this paper, so we define CLSC in the problem description section.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is well revised and No further comments.
in the current form, the manuscript can go for publication
Author Response
Point 1: The manuscript is well revised and No further comments.
in the current form, the manuscript can go for publication
Response 1: Thank you for your evaluation and recognition.
Reviewer 3 Report
This paper has been improved considerably with this revision.
Only one minor suggestion - replace essay with paper on line 104.
Author Response
Response to Reviewer 3 Comments
Point 1: This paper has been improved considerably with this revision.
Only one minor suggestion - replace essay with paper on line 104.
Response 1: Thank you for your evaluation and recognition. We have modified line 104 and checked the whole text to avoid similar errors.
