Design of Closed Loop Supply Chains

Increased concern for the environment has lead to new techniques to design products and supply chains that are both economically and ecologically feasible. This paper deals with the product - and corresponding supply chain design for a refrigerator. Literature study shows that there are many models to support product design and logistics separately, but not in an integrated way. In our research we develop quantitative modelling to support an optimal design structure of a product, i.e. modularity, repairability, recyclability, as well as the optimal locations and goods flows allocation in the logistics system. Environmental impacts are

Dataset of the Refrigerator Case: design of closed loop supply chains

This paper contains the dataset for the refrigerator case concerning the design of a production and return network for refrigerators. Section 1 emphasises the major changes to the problem structure and assumptions used by Umeda et al. (1999). Section 2 contains the parameter settings. Section 3 contains the distance matrix for all locations

Design Principles for Closed Loop Supply Chains

In this paper we study design principles for closed loop supply chains. Closed loop supply chains aim at closing material flows thereby limiting emission and residual waste, but also providing customer service at low cost. We study 'traditional' and 'new' design principles known in the literature. It appears that setting up closed loop supply chains requires some additional design principles because of sustainability requirements. At the same time however, we see that traditional principles also apply. Subsequently we look at a business situation at Honeywell. Here, only a subset of the relevant design principles is applied. The apparent low status of reverse logistics may provide an explanation for this. To some extent, the same mistakes are made again as were 20 years ago in, for instance, inbound logistics. Thus, obvious improvements can be made by applying traditional principles. Also new principles, which require a life cycle driven approach, need to be applied. This can be supported by advanced management tools such as LCA and LCC

Vicious circles that hinder value creation in closed loop supply chains

Although both practitioners and academics acknowledge that recovering returned products and materials create value, many companies are still hesitant to scale up their closed loop supply chain (CLSC) activities as part of their core business. Literature provides much knowledge on success factors for CLSC activities, constraints and stakeholder of CLSC activities, yet fails to explain how these factors interact. We conduct an explanatory study collecting and analyzing in-depth data from four brand owners of high capital electronic goods. We find that CLSC key processes negatively interact with operational constraints creating a vicious circle that impedes brand owners to scale up their CLSC activities. Several strategic factors can relax constraints, yet these are hampered by conflicting stakeholder interests. Overcoming these constraints requires integral thinking and top-management commitment as well as collaboration among different stakeholder groups

The disruptive impact of additive manufacturing on supply chains:A literature study, conceptual framework and research agenda

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is one of the advanced computer technologies that digitizes supply chains (SCs). This article presents a structured literature review on the impact of AM on SC design based on 67 peer-reviewed articles. We address the business settings in which AM operates, AM SC design choices, and AM SC performance outputs. We use the SCOR model to structure this article. Our results show that while AM is currently used for many applications it is mainly used for small, low demand and geometrically complex products. SC design involves making choices related to SC configurations, supplier relationships, AM production, installation of a return channel, IT system requirements and human resources. The main SC performance outputs influenced by AM are (reduced) SC cost and (improved) SC responsiveness. Many bottlenecks prevent AM being used to its full potential. This article contributes to the AM SC design knowledge base by developing a conceptual framework, including 18 propositions, and a research agenda identifying relevant AM SC design research themes. Moreover, a roadmap is presented describing the steps to a full roll-out of AM for manufacturing purposes, in which bottlenecks (serving as thresholds) need to be eliminated in order to trigger a series of disrupting SC effects. We expect that AM will eventually lead to SC disruption, and has the potential to largely replace conventional manufacturing for mainstream products