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Sustainability
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Reverse Logistics: An Interdisciplinary Approach
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Reverse Logistics: An Interdisciplinary Approach

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2018) | Viewed by 17567

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Sergio Rubio

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Extremadura, 06006 Badajoz, Spain
Interests: reverse logistics; supply chain management; urban logistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Antonio Chamorro-Mera

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Economics and Business Management, University of Extremadura, Avenida de Elvas s/n, 06006 Badajoz, Spain
Interests: green marketing; agri-food marketing; quality management and innovation
Prof. Dr. Francisco Miranda González

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Business Administration Department, University of Extremadura, Badajoz 06006), Spain
Interests: academic entrepreneurship; university spin-offs; R&D management
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Despite the growing interest in reverse logistics and closed-loop supply chains, research on this topic has been done within very specific areas of knowledge, mainly production and operations management (P&OM) and operational research (OR). Nevertheless, there are many issues that need to be analyzed from the point of view of other disciplines in order to validate the assumptions made in the models and frameworks we use in our research papers. In this sense, there is a strong need for interdisciplinary research with marketing, accountability, finance, strategy, and law, to mention only a few. Therefore, this Special Issue aims at describing and analyzing the relationships between reverse logistics, from the point of view of other disciplines, which are different to usual P&OM and OR, in order to provide a better understanding of the requirements, implications, and effects of implementing reverse logistics activities. Covered topics include valuation of end-of-use products, remanufactured products pricing, revenue management, regulation and normative for the management of reverse logistics systems, waste management regulation, the Extended Production Responsibility principle, willingness to pay for returned products, consumer behavior, marketing strategies for remanufactured products, cannibalization, and all issues linking reverse logistics to the mentioned disciplines.

Dr. Sergio Rubio
Dr. Francisco J. Miranda
Dr. Antonio Chamorro-Mera
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • reverse logistics;

  • marketing;

  • accountability;

  • finance;

  • strategy;

  • law;

  • interdisciplinary approach

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

20 pages, 4231 KiB  
Article
Minimization of the Environmental Emissions of Closed-Loop Supply Chains: A Case Study of Returnable Transport Assets Management
by Eleonora Bottani and Giorgia Casella
Sustainability 2018, 10(2), 329; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10020329 - 27 Jan 2018
Cited by 26 | Viewed by 3873
Abstract
This study investigates the issue of minimizing the environmental burden of a real closed-loop supply chain (CLSC), consisting of a pallet provider, a manufacturer and several retailers. A simulation model is developed under Microsoft Excel™ (Microsoft Corporation, Washington, US) to reproduce the flow [...] Read more.
This study investigates the issue of minimizing the environmental burden of a real closed-loop supply chain (CLSC), consisting of a pallet provider, a manufacturer and several retailers. A simulation model is developed under Microsoft Excel™ (Microsoft Corporation, Washington, US) to reproduce the flow of returnable transport items (RTIs) in the CLSC and to compute the corresponding environmental impact. Multi-objective optimization, including some relevant environmental key performance indicators (KPIs), is then carried out exploiting the commercial software ModeFRONTIER™ (ESTECO S.p.A., Trieste, Italy), to determine the settings that minimize emissions of the CLSC. In addition, economic and strategic metrics are taken into account in the optimization, to make the analysis more comprehensive. Three scenarios are considered (one “base” scenario and two scenarios examined in a sensitivity analysis) with different relative importance assigned to the metrics subject to optimization. Results show that the asset retrieving operations contribute to the environmental impact of the system to the greatest extent, mainly because of the quite relevant distance between Company A and its customers. Conversely, emissions due to the purchase of new assets contribute to the total environmental impact of the system to a very limited extent. Because the analysis is grounded on a real CLSC, the results are expected to provide practical indications to logistics and supply chain managers, to minimize the environmental performance of the system. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reverse Logistics: An Interdisciplinary Approach)
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31 pages, 1118 KiB  
Article
Static and Dynamic Pricing Strategies in a Closed-Loop Supply Chain with Reference Quality Effects
by Zhichao Zhang, Qing Zhang, Zhi Liu and Xiaoxue Zheng
Sustainability 2018, 10(1), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/su10010157 - 12 Jan 2018
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 4985
Abstract
Remanufacturing of returned products has been increasingly recognized in industries as an effective approach to face environmental responsibility, government regulations, and increased awareness of consumers. In this paper, we address a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) in which the manufacturer produces the brand-new products, [...] Read more.
Remanufacturing of returned products has been increasingly recognized in industries as an effective approach to face environmental responsibility, government regulations, and increased awareness of consumers. In this paper, we address a closed-loop supply chain (CLSC) in which the manufacturer produces the brand-new products, as well as the remanufactured goods while the retailer sells these products to customers. We consider several different scenarios: the manufacturer and the retailer adopt a steady-state price or a dynamic price with reference quality effects in a centralized case; either, neither or both the manufacturer and the retailer price dynamically with reference quality effects, respectively, in a decentralized model. We solve the problem with the retailer recycling the sold copies and deduce the optimal pricing strategies while the manufacturer in charge of recovering the used items in such a CLSC. The result shows that dynamic pricing strategies are much more profitable for the supply chain and its members when compared with pricing statically; the dynamic pricing strategies with time-varying quality characterized by reference quality are more suited to a long-term and cooperative closed-loop supply chain. Moreover, the optimal recycling fraction relies on the recovery cost coefficient and proves to be uniform despite adopting a dynamic price and quality in all distinct cases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reverse Logistics: An Interdisciplinary Approach)
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11366 KiB  
Article
Investment Strategy in a Closed Loop Supply Chain: The Case of a Market with Competition between Two Retailers
by Sungwook Yoon and Sukjae Jeong
Sustainability 2017, 9(10), 1712; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9101712 - 25 Sep 2017
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4323
Abstract
To survive in the ceaseless cycle of competition, businesses have developed strategies to become sustainable. These strategies include reusing products, which can lead not only to the creation of economic benefits but also to improvements in a corporation’s social and environmental responsibility. Product [...] Read more.
To survive in the ceaseless cycle of competition, businesses have developed strategies to become sustainable. These strategies include reusing products, which can lead not only to the creation of economic benefits but also to improvements in a corporation’s social and environmental responsibility. Product reuse can also increase the profit earned on new products by compensating customers who bring in old products to buy new ones, as the ensuing remanufacturing process allows for the reuse of materials and thus drives down costs. As businesses have come to recognize these values, the marketing competition to retrieve used products from customers has intensified. This research focuses on identifying effective compensation strategies to determine the appropriate advertising investment and trade-in value in a market where two homogeneous retailers compete. Retailers advertise to secure more customers to trade in their used products and to generate more trade-in sales than competitors do. A retailer’s results may vary according to its competitor’s investment strategy, which makes it useful to employ information on past competitor investment patterns to plan future investment strategies. However, as competitors using one another’s information may intensify the competition, better investment results could be obtained by ignoring competitor investment information. Therefore, this study suggests four competition strategies that determine the advertisement costs and trade-in allowance spent by retailers and discusses the difference in the profits obtained by the retailers under each of the four strategies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reverse Logistics: An Interdisciplinary Approach)
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1550 KiB  
Article
Effect of Inspection Policies and Residual Value of Collected Used Products: A Mathematical Model and Genetic Algorithm for a Closed-Loop Green Manufacturing System
by Byung Duk Song and Young Dae Ko
Sustainability 2017, 9(9), 1589; https://doi.org/10.3390/su9091589 - 06 Sep 2017
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3657
Abstract
In the green manufacturing system that pursues the reuse of used products, the residual value of collected used products (CUP) hugely affects a variety of managerial decisions to construct profitable and environmental remanufacturing plans. This paper deals with a closed-loop green manufacturing system [...] Read more.
In the green manufacturing system that pursues the reuse of used products, the residual value of collected used products (CUP) hugely affects a variety of managerial decisions to construct profitable and environmental remanufacturing plans. This paper deals with a closed-loop green manufacturing system for companies which perform both manufacturing with raw materials and remanufacturing with collected used products (CUP). The amount of CUP is assumed as a function of buy-back cost while the quality level of CUP, which means the residual value, follows a known distribution. In addition, the remanufacturing cost can differ according to the quality of the CUP. Moreover, nowadays companies are subject to existing environment-related laws such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Therefore, a company should collect more used products than its obligatory take-back quota or face fines from the government for not meeting its quota. Through the development of mathematical models, two kinds of inspection policies are examined to validate the efficiency of two different operation processes. To find a managerial solution, a genetic algorithm is proposed and tested with numerical examples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Reverse Logistics: An Interdisciplinary Approach)
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