Identification of potential recovery facilities for strategic planning of an efficient reverse distribution network

Surendra M. Gupta, Northeastern University
Kishore K. Pochampally, Northeastern University
Sagar V. Kamarthi, Northeastern University

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Originally published in the Proceedings of the 2003 Northeast Decision Sciences Institute Conference, Providence, Rhode Island, pp. 160-162, March 27-29, 2003

Abstract

Strategic planning of a distribution network is one of the most challenging aspects of reverse logistics. To effectively satisfy drivers such as profitability, environmental regulations and asset recovery, only the recovery facilities that have the potential to efficiently reprocess used-products must be considered in the reverse distribution network design. Due to uncertainties in supply, quality and reprocessing times of usedproducts, traditional forward logistics approaches to identify potential manufacturing facilities are not appropriate for direct adoption in reverse logistics. This paper proposes a mathematical programming approach, taking the above uncertainties into account, to effectively select potential facilities from a set of candidate recovery facilities. Application of the approach is detailed through an illustrative example.