Thèses sur le sujet « Reverse logistics systems »

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004.
"June 2004."
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-106).
In this thesis, real options are used to identify the optimal model for the reverse logistics process of a technology company in the circuit board business. Currently, customers return defective boards and the company repairs the boards and sends them back. Now that the new product cost is falling below the level of the repair cost, the company is considering an alternative operational model, which is to scrap the returned boards and swap them with new products. As the product cost declines, it is also widely fluctuating, and it is this fluctuation that makes the switching option between the repair and swap model valuable. The repair and swap models (with and without switching options) will each produce different cost saving amounts with different degrees of risk. As a result of real options analysis, the swap model with the switching option to repair is determined to be optimal and has only modest risk. Specifically, the costs would be reduced by $1.3 million (of which $0.9 million is the option value) and by 18% compared to the costs under the current model, and the volatility will only moderately increase from 8% to 11%. However, it should be noted that the model is sensitive to both volatility and switching cost. Unlike the traditional methodologies, such as optimization or discounted cash flow analysis, real options quantifies the option value as well as the risk and hence shows the maximum investment necessary to obtain the option. That being said, in this thesis, optimization (the news vendor approach), simulation (Monte Carlo simulation), and discounted cash flow analysis take complementary roles to real options analysis. The option value is significant when the key uncertainties (e.g., the product cost, repair cost, and volume) are volatile
(cont.) because the option allows businesses to capture upside opportunities while protecting them from downside risks.
by Akihiro Kaga.
M.Eng.in Logistics

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-64).
Despite a growing body of information about the importance of good logistics and supply chain management, there remains a dearth of research regarding consumer-to-business reverse logistics (the collection of processes required to move individual goods from individual end-consumers to the appropriate retailer, manufacturer, or third party). Indeed, there is not a comprehensive framework to assist enterprises in understanding, evaluating, creating, implementing, or changing a consumer-to-business reverse logistics policy of program. Given the growth of e-commerce and the Internet channel, where goods are often delivered to end-consumers in quantities of one and may likely be returned in quantities of one, this absence of a framework is peculiar. This thesis seeks to fill that gap by utilizing analysis of existing literature, as well as extrapolation of recent trends and developments in reverse logistics service offerings, technology, and last mile solutions. The results are that there is enough available information on the processes and issues surrounding consumer-to-business reverse logistics that a flexible and pragmatic framework can be proposed for use in the United States. This is accomplished by synthesizing results with original analysis, thought, and context. Though the framework cannot be considered comprehensive, it does provide an initial tool for critique and improvement.
by Jonathan M. Fleck.
M.Eng.

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2013.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 79-81).
The recycling of household consumer batteries is gaining legislative support throughout North America. The intent of this thesis document is to provide a broad overview of the current North American reverse logistics network for consumer batteries. Topics discussed include the viability of recycling for particular battery chemistries, collection methods, recycling methods, the current legislative environment, and the incentives to participate in the reverse logistics network for the various stakeholders identified. This document culminates in the explicit high-level definition of the available reverse logistics networks and the execution of a global warming potential analysis for each network. It is shown that, of the two available reverse logistics networks, in terms of kg C02 equivalents generated per metric ton of batteries processed one network is approximately double the environmental impact of the other. However, despite the magnitude of this difference, in an overall context this difference may not outweigh other factors for consideration. These other factors include cost, materials recovered, and overall environmental impact which would consider ecosystem quality and human health. This research was conducted using available public information as well as interviews with key individuals who are directly participating in the reverse supply chains.
prepared by Asgar Rahman.
S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis (M.Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-66).
commerce will have to prove its reliability and convenience. Operational excellence and coordination among the supply chain will allow e-vendors to offer services like on-time delivery and simple return processes, vital factors for electronic vendors' success. The purpose of this thesis is to identify the differences across the reverse logistics process. To accomplish this, the return policies and procedures of ninety-three leading companies that sell products on the Internet directly to consumers were carefully studied. Seven different return processes and four main activities included in them were identified and formally described. Each process is designed to satisfy a specific set of needs, thus they differ considerably from each other. Since logistics is a major part of the cost structure of operating a virtual store (e-tailer) every aspect of it has to be carefully studied and efficiently performed. The author has selected this sole aspect of reverse logistics to focus the research of this thesis and identify and describe the different processes that are currently used by e-vendors.
by Hector Lozano Pruneda.
M.Eng.

Thesis (M. Eng. in Logistics)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2004.
"June 2004."
Includes bibliographical references (leaf 52).
This thesis provides a method for hi-tech companies to evaluate reverse logistic software and services. To clarify what is reverse logistics, the definition and features of reverse logistics are first introduced. The reasons to improve reverse logistics management systems are explained. Information of reverse logistics software systems and service vendors is collected, compared and analyzed. Current reverse logistics market trends are analyzed and problems in evaluating reverse logistics systems are identified. An algorithm to evaluate the software and service is established and explained. Parameters are analyzed and determined. Various vendors are selected and interviewed. Their capabilities/strengths are rated. As an example, the evaluation points for several software systems are calculated in the case of a semi-conductor company. Research limits are also provided. Conclusions are presented at the end of the thesis.
by Jinfan Li.
M.Eng.in Logistics

In recent years the amount of newly registered electric vehicles, hybrid electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles has increased rapidly in the Swedish market. These vehicles could be classified as battery-powered electric vehicles, and a majority carry a lithium-ion battery. The demand for lithium is expected to increase considerably, as a result of such a swift growth in battery-powered electric vehicles. Thus, if the recycling rate of lithium stays at a low level, demand could reach a scarcity-level by 2050. While neither any infrastructure nor an established process for recycling lithium-ion batteries currently exists in Sweden, this study aims to provide necessary input and verified tools for the design of a future reverse supply chain for discarded lithium-ion batteries in Sweden. The literature review of this study covers the subjects of reverse logistics, supply chain network design, and operations research. A thorough situation analysis of the Swedish market for battery-powered electric vehicles is conducted, and the composition, function, and characteristics of lithium-ion batteries are studied. The study finds that estimations of future demand of recyclable lithium-ion batteries in Sweden could be between 206 711 and 726 974 tons accumulated, based on actual and predicted sales numbers until 2030. Even if it is obvious that there are going to be large quantities of such batteries requiring recycling in the future, and even if some established processes exist, there is no defined supply chain for the collection of those batteries. Finally, a mixed-integer programming model for the design and development of a future reverse supply chain is presented. The model, characterized as a discrete multi-period facility location/allocation model, can with minor modifications be used for problems with fluctuating demand or when the demand is assumed to slowly progress until it has reached a steady state.

Municipality Solid Waste management services are reverse logistics (RL) operations of significant scale and importance throughout the developed world, and yet the topic has only received limited attention within the logistics and supply-chain management literature, despite an increasing policy focus on sustainability issues. An interdisciplinary approach was chosen for this study to explore the interaction between municipality household recycling waste systems and household recycling behaviour, which is represented by situational and personal factors in this study. A mixed methodology approach was used, based on a Sequential Exploratory Design that uses a mixed method typology (Qual-Quan-Qual) to explore the proposition that there is a symbiosis effect between the recycling behaviour of households and municipality household recycling waste systems. A non-probability sampling was drawn from the population of two adjacent councils in Northern England: the East Riding of Yorkshire and the City of Hull. The three stages of the research design show a consistent and similar outcome for the interaction between households and household recycling waste systems, represented by personal and situational factors respectively. The interaction clearly demonstrates a symbiosic effect between households and household recycling waste systems. The nature of household recycling behaviour was found to be affected by accessibility, availability and convenience, and where these diminish, the personal engagement of households in recycling is likely to diminish. Logistical factors, such as accessibility and availability are therefore considered to be strong predictors in the projection of household recycling behaviour, together with marketing factors, such as engagement and education. In addition, demographical elements are considered as moderating factors in the projection of household recycling behaviour. Moreover personal factors are found to be equally strong predictors when the situational factors are established and formed in accordance with the residential requirement. A robust theoretical framework has been developed during this study, which may be accessible for future studies, incorporating the relationship between situational and personal factors, and focusing primarily on the interaction between the respective factors. However, the conceptualization of the symbiosis effect requires further investigation and replication to clarify and understand the interaction in different scopes and perceptions. With regards to the methodological implication, this study supports earlier logistic literature by diversifying the research approach in its contribution to the literature. Thus, the application of mixed methodology addresses the incongruities between mono-paradigm in relation to recycling and waste literature, and reveals some clarity on the underpinning factors that explain behavioural changes in household recycling performance. As for the practical implications, in order to increase recycling performance, the mediating factors such as engagement and education are important contributions from this study with respect to changing HRB. The study also reveals that accessibility, availability and convenience are important precursors. Therefore, it was useful to design a sustainable reverse logistics system in waste management by considering the precursory factors to appropriate engagement that represents the public needs The outcome of this study indicates that the nexus between HRWS and HRB has to be focused on their symbiotic relationship, and looks at current HRWM from a symbiosis perspective. The caveat may be for policymakers and local authorities to come up with a sustainable backward movement that addresses ‘awareness, acknowledgement and action’ from the households’ perspective.

The purpose with the study is to provide a basis for an implementable, improved returns management process. This will help to obtain an empirical result for Lager 157 and to fill any scientific knowledge gap. The study has been divided into two research questions that are of a hierarchical nature. The authors first want to map the return process in order to then make suggestions for improvements using collected data along with collected theory. Method – A single case study has been conducted because the authors are studying a process and want a more in-depth knowledge. The study is carried out on Lager 157, who is active in fashion retailing and has a pronounced strategy for omnichannels, where they use both stores and e-commerce. Because the study only is made on one company, the external validity will be low. But the authors will compare collected theory with the empirics, which will increase the external validity. The literature has been collected through different sources, such as; databases, snowballing and recommendations from teachers and fellow students. The methods for collecting data has been; interviews, observations and document studies. Triangulation of data has ensured that the collected data is correct. Findings – The authors have, together with data and theory, provided a basis on how the study company could improve their returns management. The basis stated is that a web-based return registration should be implemented early in the process but also that the stores should use the same ERP as they do in the e-commerce department. These suggestions are based on that the study company should highlight activities such as gatekeeping and return avoidance, which leads to an improved returns management. Because of these changes, the company can increase their process speed but also improve their process integration and take a step towards fully integrated omni channels. Implications –The study has provided with both empirical and scientific implications. The study company has, from the results, got an overview of their returns management but also been provided with suggestions that can lead to an improved returns management in the future. In the results, the study company can also see which effects these suggestions could have and see how the new returns management could look like compared to have it looked before. During the literature study, the authors found that research connected to omni channels and the focused area were missing. Based on this the authors have created a model which illustrates what the companies should prioritize. Because the study only is made on one single company, the authors thinks that there is room for further research where the model could be evaluated and evolved to fit a greater number of companies. Limitations – Because of a time limit of the study, a single case study was considered to be of high relevance. It gave the authors the opportunity to use different methods to collect data in order to strengthen the results obtained. The external validity would have been higher if an multi case study would have been conducted with a quantitative approach. The interviews where following a semi-structured structure because the authors wanted to gather a large amount of information and leave space for follow-up questions. The observations were unstructured in order to make sure that the observation object where acting naturally. On the other hand, a structured observation would have shown differences and deviations in the activities. The document studies were only used to find out which type of data that the study company did collect. This could have been more extensive in a quantitative focus on the study.
Syfte – Syftet med studien är att ta fram underlag för en implementerbar, förbättrad returprocess. Detta skall bidra till att få fram ett empiriskt resultat åt Lager 157 samt att fylla igen eventuella vetenskapliga kunskapsgap. Studien har delats in i två forskningsfrågor av en hierarkisk karaktär. Författarna vill först kartlägga returprocessen för att i sedan ta fram underlag för förbättringar med hjälp av insamlade data tillsammans med insamlad teori. Metod – En enfallsstudie har genomförts då författarna ämnar studera en process och vill ha en mer djupgående kunskap. Studien är genomförd på Lager 157 som är verksamma inom mode och har en uttalad strategi för omnihandel, där de använder sig av både butiker och e-handel. Då studien enbart är genomförd på ett fallföretag så kommer den externa validiteten vara låg. Däremot ämnar författarna jämföra insamlad teori med empirin, vilket stärker den externa validiteten. Författarna har samlat in litteratur genom olika tillvägagångssätt, såsom; databassökningar, snöbollsmetoden samt rekommendationer ifrån handledare och medstudenter. De metoder som har använts för att samla in data är; intervjuer, observationer och dokumentstudier. Triangulering av data har säkerställt att den insamlade data är korrekt. Resultat – Tillsammans med insamlade data och teori har författarna tagit fram underlag för hur fallföretaget skulle kunna förbättra sin process. Det underlag som tagits fram är dels att en webbaserad returregistrering bör implementeras tidigt i flödet samt att butikerna och e- handeln bör använda sig av samma affärssystem. Detta underlag har sin grund i att fallföretaget bör lyfta fram aktiviteter så som gatekeeping och return avoidance, vilket leder till en förbättrad returprocess. Effekterna anses bidra till att fallföretaget kan öka sin bearbetningshastighet men också förhöja sin processintegration och ta ett steg mot en fullt integrerad omnihandel. Implikationer – Studien har både tagit fram empiriska och vetenskapliga implikationer. Dels har fallföretaget utifrån studiens resultat fått en överblick i hur returprocessen ser ut men också fått ett underlag med åtgärdsförslag som kan leda till en förbättrad returprocess i framtiden. I studiens resultat kan fallföretaget se vilka effekter detta kan mynna ut i men också hur det nya flödet skulle komma att se ut i de båda kanalerna. Då forskning inom omnihandel kopplat till det studerade området ansågs saknas så har författarna tagit fram en modell som illustrerar vad företag bör prioritera. På grund av att studien enbart är genomförd på ett företag anser forskarna att det finns ett tillfälle för vidare forskning, där modellen kan utvärderas och utvecklas för att passa ett större antal företag. Begränsningar – Då författarna har en tidsbegränsning kopplat till arbetet ansåg författarna att en enfallstudie var av högst relevans. Detta gav även möjligheten för författarna att ta användning av olika datainsamlingstekniker för att stärka de resultat som tagits fram. Om en flerfallstudie hade genomförts med mer kvantitativ datainsamling hade det gett en mer överblickande bild, vilket skulle kunna stärka den externa validiteten. De intervjuer som genomfördes följde en semistrukturerad struktur då författarna ämnade att samla in en stor mängd information och där utrymme fanns för följdfrågor. De observationer som genomfördes var ostrukturerade för att säkerställa att observationsobjekten betedde sig naturligt. Däremot hade en strukturerad observation visat på skillnader och avvikelser i aktiviteterna. Dokumentstudierna användes enbart för att säkerställa vilken typ av data som samlades in i dagsläget och kunde ha varit mer omfattande vid en kvantitativ inriktning på studien.

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of the study is to identify key-factors for the development of reverse logistics in a distribution central. The study should contribute to cover the knowledge gap that is the problem area: development of reverse logistics in a distribution central. This, since former research primarily deal with the problem area: development of reverse logistics between costumer and focal firm. The purpose of the study has been broken down into two research questions. The first one deals with which forces that affect the development of reverse logistics in a distribution central. Further, important factors for the development of reverse logistics in a distribution central will be identified. Method – The method for the study is an one case study since only one process will be studied. Also, to be able to obtain more profound knowledge within the problem area. The chosen business case is named Ikea distribution central and is located on the industrial area Torsvik. The company is active on the furniture market. The literature collection has been done through four different methods which are: recommendations of search words, recommendations of articles, database searches and snowball sampling. Further, the data collection has been made through interviews, document studies and observations. Finally, the internal validity of the study is high under the circumstance that theories regarding the development of reverse logistics based on B2C is considered to be applicable on the problem area which is based in B2B. Further, the external validity of the study is considered to be low since only one business case was studied. Although, the theory and empiricism of the study has been analysed which in turn strengthens the external validity. Findings – With the collected theories and empiricism as background the authors has produced a basis on which key-factors that are important for the development of reverse logistics in a distribution central. The key-factors that were identified as important and should be taken under consideration is: driving- and hindering forces for the development of reverse logistics in a distribution central, the primary causes of reverse logistics in a distribution central, return avoidance, gatekeeping, supplier relationship management and green logistics. Further, it was discovered that a big factor for a favourable development of reverse logistics in a distribution central was continuous training of the personal simultaneously as the development of the reverse logistics process. Implications – Through the analysis of the study it became clear that a big amount of hinders that can occur in association with the development of reverse logistics, comes as a result of the gap in understanding between the management and the operating core. With this as background the authors of the study recommends that whenever a process is developed, great importance should be added in developing the personal working in the process. Limitations – The limitations which lowers the internal validity and in turn the credibility of the study is that many of the theories used in the study is based on B2C. Another limitation is the choice of one case study since the research questions aimed at obtaining general conclusions. Keywords – Reverse logistics, Return management, Return avoidance, Gatekeeping, Supplier relationship management, Green logistics, Distribution central
Syfte – Syftet med studien är att identifiera nyckelfaktorer för utvecklingen av returlogistik på en distributionscentral. Studien skall bidra till att täcka det kunskapsgap som finns i problemområdet utveckling av returlogistik på en distributionscentral. Detta då tidigare forskning primärt behandlat problemområdet mellan kund och fokalfirma. Studiens syfte har brutits ned i två frågeställningar. Först vill studiens författare ta reda på vilka krafter som påverkar utvecklingen av returlogistik på en distributionscentral. Vidare skall viktiga faktorer för utvecklingen av returlogistik på en distributionscentral identifieras. Metod – Studiens valda metod är enfallsstudie då endast en process studeras, även för att kunna erhålla mer djupgående kunskap om det valda problemområdet. Studiens fallföretag är Ikea distributionscentral som är lokaliserade på industriområdet Torsvik utanför Jönköping och är verksamma inom möbelbranschen. Litteraturinsamlingen har genomförts med hjälp av fyra olika insamlingsmetoder: rekommendation av sökord, rekommendation av artikel, sökning i databaser och snowball sampling. Vidare har studiens insamlade data erhållits genom intervjuer, dokumentstudier samt observationer. Slutligen anses studiens interna validitet vara hög, under förutsättningen att teorier om utvecklingen av returlogistik baserade på B2C även anses vara applicerbara i B2B. Vidare anses den externa validiteten vara låg då endast ett företag har studerats. Dock har teorin och empirin analyserats för att nå generella resultat, vilket stärker den externa validiteten. Resultat – Med studiens insamlade teori och empiri som bakgrund har författarna tagit fram underlag för vilka nyckelfaktorer som är viktiga för utvecklingen av returlogistik på en distributionscentral. De nyckelfaktorer som identifierades som viktiga och bör tas i beaktande var: drivande- och hindrande krafter för utvecklingen av returlogistik på en distributionscentral, grundorsaker för returlogistik på en distributionscentral, return avoidance, gatekeeping, supplier relationship management och grön logistik. Vidare upptäcktes att en stor påverkande faktor för en gynnsam utveckling av returlogistik på en distributionscentral var kontinuerlig utbildning av personal i samband med utvecklingen av sin returlogistikprocess. Implikationer – I studiens analys framkom det att många av de hinder som kan uppstå i samband med utvecklingen av returlogistik handlar om det förståelsegap som finns mellan ledning och den operativa kärnan. Med detta som bakgrund rekommenderar studiens författare att ett företag måste lägga stor vikt på att se till att en utveckling sker både på process-nivå och personal-nivå. Begränsningar – Det som anses begränsa den interna validiteten och i sin tur studiens trovärdighet är att många av de teorier som har använts primärt är grundade i B2C. En ytterligare begränsning är valet av enfallsstudie, detta då forskningsfrågorna och syftet formulerades för att söka generella slutsatser. Nyckelord – Reverse logistics, Return management, Return avoidance, Gatekeeping, Supplier relationship management, Green logistics, Distributionscentral

Problem: The demand of beverages in PET bottles is constantly increasing. In this context, environmental, technological and regulatory aspects set a stronger focus on recycling. Generally, the reuse of recycled material from post-consumer PET bottles in bottle-to-bottle applications is seen as least environmentally harmful. However, closed-loop systems are not widely implemented in Europe. Previous research mainly focuses on open-loop recycling systems and generally lacks discussion about the current German and Swedish systems and their challenges. Furthermore, previous studies lack theoretical and practical enhancements for bottle-to-bottle recycling from a managerial perspective. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare the PET bottle recycling systems in Germany and Sweden, analyse the main barriers and develop enhancements for closed-loop systems. Method: This qualitative study employs a case study strategy about the two cases of Germany and Sweden. In total, 14 semi-structured interviews are conducted with respondents from different industry sectors within the PET bottle recycling systems. The empirical data is categorised and then analysed by pattern matching with the developed theoretical framework. Conclusion: Due to the theoretical and practical commitment to closed-loop recycling, the Swedish PET bottle recycling system outperforms the Germany system. In Germany, bottle-to-bottle recycling is currently performed on a smaller scale without a unified system. The main barriers for bottle-to-bottle recycling are distinguished into (1) quality and material factors, (2) regulatory and legal factors, (3) economic and market factors and (4) factors influenced by consumers. The enhancements for the systems are (1) quality and material factors, (2) regulatory and legal factors, (3) recollection factors and (4) expanding factors. Lastly, the authors provide further recommendations, which are (1) a recycling content symbol on bottle labels, (2) a council for bottle quality in Germany, (3) a quality seal for the holistic systems, (4) a reduction of transportation in Sweden and (5) an increase of consumer awareness on PET bottle consumption.

In this study, we focus on pricing and production decisions in reusable container systems with stochastic demand. We consider a producer that sells a single product to the customers in reusable containers with two supply options: (i) brand-new containers, (ii) returned containers from customers. Customers purchasing the products may return the containers to the producer to receive a deposit price. The return quantity depends on both customer demand and the deposit price determined by the producer. Hence, the producer has the opportunity to manipulate the return quantity via the deposit price. The unit cost of filling brand-new containers is different than the unit cost of refilling returned containers. We also consider resource restrictions on the production operations. Our setting represents certain hybrid manufacturing / remanufacturing systems where (i) the producer collects and recovers his own products, (ii) the producer supplies both brand-new and recovered products to his customers, and (iii) the customers are indierent between brand-new and recovered products. In this setting, we investigate the optimal pricing and production decisions in order to maximize the producer`s profit. Our approach utilizes non-linear optimization techniques. We characterize the optimal acquisition fee and the optimal order quantity of brand-new containers analytically and investigate the effect of parameters with an extensive computational study.

While varies of supply chains are working on moving products towardsthe end consumers, there is also an increasing amount of productsbeing sent back. This has meant an increasing importance of the returnmanagement process. As many businesses have realized that the returnprocess has little connection with their core value, the idea ofoutsourcing return management crossed the mind of many companies.Third-party logistics (3PL) provider have also sensed the opportunityand begun to explore the possibility of providing such services forcompanies in need.

Das aktuell vorherrschende lineare Wirtschaftsprinzip ist für viele Umweltprobleme verantwortlich. Neben der immensen Umweltverschmutzung sorgt der stetig wachsende Ressourcenverbrauch für eine zunehmende Verknappung vieler wertvoller Rohstoffe. Ein intelligentes Kreislaufwirtschaftskonzept wie Cradle-to-Cradle kann diesen Problemen entgegenwirken. Für eine erfolgreiche Umsetzung von Cradle-to-Cradle werden unternehmerische Ansätze benötigt. Im Rahmen dieses Artikels werden vier Konzepte untersucht, die in einer Kreislaufwirtschaft implementiert werden können. Diese sind Design für Demontage, Produkt-Service-Systeme, Take-back Strategien und Reverse Logistics. Für jeden dieser vier Ansätze werden die Voraussetzungen sowie Barrieren hinsichtlich der Umsetzung innerhalb eines Kreislaufwirtschaftssystems aufgezeigt. Zudem wird dargelegt, dass sie im Cradle-to-Cradle-System realisierbar sind. Weiterhin werden reale Beispiele in Form von Unternehmen vorgestellt, die die verschiedenen Modelle bereits erfolgreich umgesetzt haben. Alle vier untersuchten Konzepte sind für ein Kreislaufwirtschaftssystem unter Beachtung der Cradle-to-Cradle-Kriterien geeignet.
The currently prevailing linear economic principle is responsible for many environmental problems. In addition to the immense environmental pollution, the constantly growing consumption of resources is causing an increasing shortage of many valuable raw materials. An intelligent circular economy concept such as Cradle to Cradle can counteract these problems. Entrepreneurial approaches are needed for a successful implementation of Cradle to Cradle. This article examines four concepts that can be implemented in a circular economy. These are design for disassembly, product service systems, take-back strategies, and reverse logistics. For each of these four approaches, the prerequisites as well as barriers regarding the implementation within a circular economy system are shown. In addition, it is shown that they can be implemented in a cradle-to-cradle system. Furthermore, real examples are presented as companies that have already successfully implemented the various models. All four concepts examined are suitable for a circular economy system in compliance with the Cradle to Cradle criteria.

[ES] Una vía para conseguir un cambio de modelo de negocio hacia modelos más sostenibles es transformar el modelo empresarial tradicional lineal hacia modelos más circulares, priorizando el aprovechamiento de los recursos y la reducción del consumo de materias primas. De hecho, uno de los diecisiete Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible, hace referencia a la producción y al consumo responsables, incluyendo, como una de sus metas, "reducir considerablemente la generación de desechos mediante actividades de prevención, reducción, reciclado y reutilización". En este contexto de expansión del concepto de desarrollo sostenible y de la economía circular, la gestión de los productos recuperados ha convertido la Logística Inversa (LI) en una competencia clave de las Cadenas de Suministro (CdS) modernas. Otra de las causas que sitúan a la LI en la primera línea de las preocupaciones de las empresas son las devoluciones de los productos adquiridos y el elevado flujo inverso que generan, debido al incremento exponencial del comercio electrónico y su permisiva política de devoluciones. Ante este vertiginoso crecimiento de las operaciones de LI, surge la necesidad de actualizar los tradicionales procesos logísticos de las empresas, integrando en ellos el Proceso de Logística Inversa (PLI), lo cual permite controlar todo el ciclo de vida del producto. Sin embargo, debido fundamentalmente a que los flujos inversos son menos predecibles y más variables que los directos, la gestión de la LI no es una tarea fácil. En este contexto, muchas empresas han comenzado a trabajar duramente por estandarizar y formalizar sus PLI, estableciendo una serie de reglas, procedimientos y comunicaciones, que faciliten la comprensión del proceso a todos los interesados y les ayude a saber cómo actuar en cada momento. Disponer de un PLI estandarizado y formalizado permite una mejor comprensión y gestión de los productos devueltos o recuperados y una LI más eficiente, que puede a su vez proporcionar una ventaja competitiva a la empresa. Otro aspecto vital para conseguir una mayor eficiencia y rentabilidad de los PLI es facilitar la toma de decisiones en dicho proceso. En definitiva, una toma de decisiones ágil y acertada aumentará la eficiencia, permitiendo reducir costes, mejorar el servicio al cliente e incrementar los beneficios de la compañía. En este sentido, de entre todas las decisiones relacionadas con el PLI, la decisión sobre la alternativa de disposición (DD) puede destacarse como la más determinante. Precisamente, la importancia del PLI y la complejidad de la DD en el contexto descrito, justifican el desarrollo de herramientas de ayuda a la toma de decisiones. Sin embargo, los trabajos hallados en la literatura, si bien se centran en aportar modelos de ayuda a la toma de decisiones, no trabajan el PLI en su conjunto, y no llegan a estandarizar las operaciones que se realizan a lo largo del proceso, sin mostrar claramente cómo se construyen dichos modelos ni la composición de los distintos elementos del modelo. La presente tesis desarrolla un Marco de Referencia para el Desarrollo Integrado de Modelos de Procesos y Matemáticos en un contexto de LI (MR-DIMPM-LI), aportando una solución integrada que aborde el PLI en su conjunto y facilite la formalización del proceso y la toma de decisiones eficiente y sostenible en cada caso concreto. Mediante el Marco de Referencia planteado se promueve el desarrollo de modelos sostenibles, no solo favoreciendo el entendimiento y la incorporación del PLI en las empresas sino, además, haciendo que este sea realmente sostenible. Este Marco de Referencia se ha aplicado en una red de LI de bucle cerrado de un fabricante de sillones de relax y, por otro lado, en una red de LI de bucle abierto de neumáticos usados. Como resultado, se ha podido comprobar la idoneidad del Marco de Referencia propuesto en cuanto a la formalización del PLI y a la toma de decisiones de la DD, haciéndola más e
[CAT] Una via per aconseguir un canvi de model de negoci cap a models més sostenibles és transformar el model empresarial tradicional lineal cap a models més circulars, prioritzant l'aprofitament dels recursos i la reducció del consum de matèries primeres. De fet, un dels disset Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible, fa referència a la producció i al consum responsables, incloent-hi, com un dels seus objectius, "reduir considerablement la generació de residus mitjançant activitats de prevenció, reducció, reciclatge i reutilització". En aquest context d'expansió del concepte de desenvolupament sostenible i de l'economia circular, la gestió dels productes recuperats ha convertit la Logística Inversa (LI) en una competència clau de les Cadenes de Subministrament (CdS) modernes. Una altra de les causes que situen la LI en la primera línia de les preocupacions de les empreses són les devolucions dels productes adquirits i l'elevat flux invers que generen, a causa de l'increment exponencial del comerç electrònic i la seua permissiva política de devolucions. Davant d'aquest vertiginós creixement de les operacions de LI, sorgeix la necessitat d'actualitzar els tradicionals processos logístics de les empreses, integrant en ells el Procés de Logística Inversa (PLI), la qual cosa permet controlar tot el cicle de vida del producte. Tanmateix, a causa del fet que els fluxos inversos són menys predictibles i més variables que els directes, la gestió de la LI no és una tasca fàcil. En aquest context, moltes empreses han començat a treballar durament per estandarditzar i formalitzar els seus PLI, establint una sèrie de regles, procediments i comunicacions, que faciliten la comprensió del procés a tots els interessats i els ajude a saber com actuar en cada moment.Un altre aspecte vital per tal d'aconseguir una major eficiència i rendibilitat dels PLI és facilitar la presa de decisions en aquest procés. La identificació, estudi, descripció i modelatge de les decisions ajudarà els gestors o decisors a tenir una visió integrada de les mateixes i a entendre millor els aspectes a considerar en aquestes decisions i el seu impacte. En definitiva, una presa de decisions àgil i encertada augmentarà l'eficiència, permetent reduir costos, millorar el servei al client i incrementar els beneficis de la companyia. En aquest sentit, d'entre totes les decisions relacionades amb el PLI, la decisió sobre l'alternativa de disposició (DD) pot destacar-se com la més determinant, pel fet que ha de ser única per cada producte, condiciona a la resta de decisions, està influenciada per una elevada incertesa, repercuteix en el grau de sostenibilitat de l'empresa, està condicionada per molts factors la condicionen i generalment precisa d'agilitat i rapidesa per proporcionar una resposta a client. Precisament, la importància del PLI i la complexitat de la DD en el context descrit, justifiquen el desenvolupament d'eines d'ajuda a la presa de decisions. No obstant això, els treballs trobats a la literatura, tot i que se centren en aportar models d'ajuda a la presa de decisions, no treballen el PLI en el seu conjunt, i no arriben a estandarditzar les operacions que es realitzen al llarg de el procés. La present tesi desenvolupa un Marc de Referència (MR) per al Desenvolupament Integrat de Models de Processos i Matemàtics en un context de LI, aportant una solució integrada que aborde el PLI en el seu conjunt i facilite la formalització del procés i la presa de decisions eficient i sostenible en cada cas concret. El MR plantejat promou els models sostenibles, no només afavorint l'enteniment i la incorporació del PLI a les empreses sinó, a més, fent que aquest siga realment sostenible. Aquest MR s'ha aplicat a una xarxa de LI d'un fabricant de butaques de relax i a una xarxa de LI de pneumàtics usats. Com a resultat, s'ha pogut comprovar la idoneïtat del MR proposat pel que fa a la formalització del PLI i a la presa
[EN] One way to achieve a change in the business model towards more sustainable ones is to transform the traditional linear business models to more circular ones, prioritizing the use of resources and reducing the consumption of raw materials. In fact, one of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, refers to responsible production and consumption, including, as one of its goals, "considerably reduce the generation of waste through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse activities". In this context of expanding the sustainable development and the circular economy concepts, recovered product's management has made Reverse Logistics (RL) a key competence of modern Supply Chains (SC). Another reason why RL is a major concern for companies is the returns of purchased products and the high reverse flow generated, due to the exponential e-commerce increase and its permissive return policy. Because of this vertiginous growth of RL operations, the companies must update the traditional logistics processes, integrating the Reverse Logistics Process (RLP) into them, which allows controlling the entire life cycle of the product. However, RL management is not an easy task, mainly because reverse flows are less predictable and more variable than direct ones. In this context, many companies have begun to work hard to standardize and formalize their RLP, establishing a set of rules, procedures and communications, which facilitate the understanding of the process for all interested stakeholders and help them to know how to act at any time. Having a standardized and formalized RLP enables better understanding and management of returned or recovered products and a more efficient RL, which can in turn provide a competitive advantage to the company. Another vital aspect to achieve greater efficiency and profitability of the RLP is to facilitate decision making in this process. The identification, study, description and modeling of decisions will help managers or decision-makers to have an integrated vision of them and to better understand the aspects to be considered in such decisions and their impact. In fact, agile and accurate decision making will increase efficiency, reducing costs, improving customer service and increasing company profits. In this sense, among all the decisions related to the RLP, the disposition decision (DD) can be highlighted as the most decisive, since it must be unique for each product, it determines the rest of the decisions, it is influenced by high uncertainty and affects the degree of sustainability of the company, it is conditioned by multiple factors and generally requires agility and speed to respond to the costumer. Precisely, the importance of RLP and the complexity of DD in the context described, justify the development of tools as an aid to decision-making. However, the studies found in the literature, although they focus on providing models for decision-making, do not work on the PLI as a whole, and do not come to standardize the operations carried out throughout the process, hardly showing how these models are built or the composition of the different elements of the model.This thesis develops a Reference Framework for the Integrated Development of Mathematical and Process Models in an RL context, providing an integrated solution that addresses the RLP as a whole and facilitates the formalization of the process and the efficient and sustainable decision making in each specific case. Through this, the development of sustainable models is promoted, not only favoring the understanding and incorporation of the RLP in companies but also making it truly sustainable. This framework has been applied to two real examples: a RL network of the manufacturer of relaxing chairs and a network of used tires. As a result, it has been possible to verify the suitability of the proposed Reference Framework regarding the formalization of the RLP and the decision-making of the DD, making it more efficient and sustainable.
Cortés Pellicer, P. (2020). Marco de Referencia para el Desarrollo Integrado de Modelos de Procesos y Matemáticos de Ayuda a la Toma de Decisiones en un Contexto de Logística Inversa [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/159265
TESIS

Although the research in the field of the performance measurement system for remanufacturing activities is partial, an amount of literature and research has been performed regarding the performance measurement applicable for remanufacturing activities. The success of applying a performance measurement system on Remanufacturing relies on the relationship and inclusion of all perspectives; from customers to financial, as well as the remanufacturing process, and all challenges facing a remanufacturing process. Since the retrieval of used products is essential to the remanufacturers, the successful management of those specific processes contributes to an effective and efficient outcome of a Remanufacturing business’s performance outcome.

Background:   The demand of textiles and clothing is constantly increasing; as a result the post-consumer textile waste increase as well. This point is bringing the focus on creating the value from waste by recycling. Sweden, municipalities are responsible for handling the textile waste that is currently categorized as the household waste. The post-consumer textile when disposed is mixed with the other household waste, which eliminates the commercial value of the material Purpose:          The purpose of this study is to explore the current system in Nässjö municipality to manage post-consumer textiles and identify the possibilities for value creation through reverse logistics processes.  Method:          To fulfil the research purpose a qualitative study employing single case is used. Study caters multi-perspectives from different actors i.e. municipality, logistics service providers and consumers. Purposive sampling is used to select the respondents from each actor seeing their position in the companies and knowledge on the subject. Primary data is gathered by conducting 11 semi-structured interviews and field visit to the waste collection site. Secondary data is obtained using web sources and also from different project reports from government and other agencies. The empirical data is categorized and then analysed by thematic analysis with the developed theoretical framework of systems’ theory. Findings:         Legislation to collect textiles as the separate entity and put it in the reverse logistics system is on the way. Today, input in the system is very low due to the unawareness of consumers about the available options. Municipality is processing the waste as a normal household waste and it is incinerated to produce energy for the residents.  LSP are coordinating with municipality and tend to increase their resources for effective participation in the new system. Municipality requires strategic changes to meet the coming legislative requirements. Conclusion:     A sub-system could be developed for post-consumer textile in Nassjo municipality. Input in the system has to be determined by consumers education and convenience. Municipality has to define their roles for manage sub-system effectively. The study has provided the rich description of potential possibilities in this context.

In the field of aviation forecasting is used, among other things, to determine the number of passengers to expect for each flight. This is beneficial in the practice of revenue management, as the forecast is used as a base when setting the price for each flight. In this study, a forecast evaluation has been done on seven different routes with a total of 61 different flights, using four different methods. These are: Mean Absolute Scaled Error (MASE), Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Tracking Signal, and a goodness of fit test to determine if the forecast errors are normally distributed. The MASE has been used to determine if the passenger forecasts are better or worse than a naïve forecast, while the MAPE provides an error value for internal comparisons between the flights. The Tracking Signal and the normal distribution test have been used in order to determine whether a flight has bias or not towards under- or overforecasting. The results point towards a general underforecast across all studied flights. A total of 89 % of the forecasts perform better than the naïve forecast, with an average MASE value of 0,78. As such, the forecast accuracy is better than that of the naïve forecast. There are however large error values among the observed flights, affecting the MAPE average. The MAPE average is 38,53 % while the median is 30,60 %. The measure can be used for internal comparisons, and one such way is to use the average value as a benchmark in order to focus on improving those forecasts with a higher than average MAPE. The authors have found that the MASE and MAPE are useful in measuring forecast accuracy and as such the recommendation of the authors is that these two error measures can be used together to evaluate forecast accuracy at frequent intervals. In addition to this there is value in examining the error distribution in conjunction with the Mean Error when searching for bias, as this will indicate if there is systematic error present.

Bakgrund: Idag har företag många krav utifrån miljömässiga aspekter där vi i Sverige påverkas i stor utsträckning av EU:s regleringar. Ett av alla områden som EU:s regleringar berör är det om avfallshantering och förebyggande av avfall. Ett sätt för företag att arbeta med sin avfallshantering och förebygga denna är med hjälp av omvänd logistik. Omvänd logistik syftar till att hämta tillbaka produkten efter användning för återvinning, återanvändning eller avfall. Utöver att den omvända logistiken i ett företag styrs av regleringar påverkas den även av centrala aktörer i ett nätverk. Forskningen för omvänd logistik är begränsad i flera områden. Bland annat har omvänd logistik inte studerats i större utsträckning utifrån institutionell teori. Denna studie ser därför möjlighet till att täcka detta gap och främja teorin och praktik i omvänd logistik på mikronivå. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att kartlägga och förstå hur institutionella krafter har format fältet omvänd logistik samt hur dessa krafter har tagit sig i form på mikronivå. Metod: En komparativ fallstudie genomfördes av två retursystem av lastpallar: Svenska Retursystem (SRS) inom livsmedelsbranschen och Retursystem Byggpall (RB) inom byggbranschen. Den består av sju stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer. Den består även av forskning och regleringar inom omvänd logistik för att presentera de institutionella krafterna som format omvänd logistik och därefter retursystemen. Teori: Den teoretiska referensramen består av institutionell teori och nätverksteori. Resultat: De institutionella krafter som undersöks i denna studie samt påverkat fältet omvänd logistik är forskning och regleringar. Forskning visar på att omvänd logistik främst behandlat kostnadsbesparingar men har mer och mer betonat dess miljömässiga fördel. Regleringar inom omvänd logistik visar på att organisationer styrs av EU-direktiv som översätts till svensk lagstiftning och därefter till branschspecifika riktlinjer. Retursystemenen och deras nätverk är ett resultat av dessa institutionella krafter som visas genom de krav och praktiker de har. Lärande och beroende var två viktiga faktorer i nätverkens relationer med andra aktörer. Slutligen har det framkommit att hållbarhet är en växande trend inom omvänd logistik. Förslag på fortsatt forskning: Undersöka fler aktörer inom omvänd logistik och studera dessa utifrån intressentteori.
Background: Companies have many demands based on environmental aspects. Sweden is largely influenced by EU regulations and one of the areas covered by EU regulations is waste management and waste prevention. One way for companies to work with their waste management and waste prevention is by using Reverse Logistics. Reverse Logistics aims to retrieve the product after its use for recycling, reuse or waste. In addition to the Reverse Logistics activities of a company being largely controlled by regulations, it is also affected by key players in the network. The Reverse Logistics research and literature is limited in several areas. Among other areas, Reverse Logistics has not been studied to a greater extent based on Institutional Theory. This study therefore sees the opportunity to cover this gap by examine the Reverse Logistics field in a micro perspective. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to map and understand how institutional forces have shaped the field of Reverse Logistics and how these forces have taken shape from a micro perspective. Method: A comparative case study was conducted by two return systems of pallets: Svenska Retursystem (SRS) in the food industry and Retursystem Byggpall (RB) in the construction industry. The study consists of seven semistructured interviews. It also consists of literature and regulations to present the institutional forces as they have shaped the Reverse Logistics field that later created the return systems. Theory: The theoretical frame of reference consists of Institutional Theory and Network Theory. Results: The institutional powers that was examined in this study and which have influenced the field of Reverse Logistics are literature and regulations. The literature shows that Reverse Logistics mainly have been used as a way to save costs in companies, but has more and more emphasized its environmental advantage. Reverse Logistics regulations show that organizations are governed by EU directives that are translated into Swedish legislations and later on to industry-specific guidelines. The return systems and their networks are the result of these institutional forces, as shown by the requirements and practices they have. Learning and dependence were two important factors in the network relations with other key players. Finally, it has been found that sustainability is a growing trend in Reverse Logistics. Proposals for continued research: Examine more key players in Reverse Logistics and study them based on Stakeholder Theory.

Sustainability has become a more and more important aspect within companies worldwide. Environmental aspects within companies are often connected to higher profits and increased corporate image. One field of importance, to create a more effective supply chain within companies, regards to the logistic process. An area within logistics is reverse logistics, which regards to the activities related to taking back goods, information or material from the consumer or customer to receive value from it or to dispose it. By reusing goods or material, reverse logistics together with handling solutions could form a return system. Implementation of a return system could moreover be related to circular economy, which means effective use of resources within a closed loop supply chain. By combining logistics, handling, return system and circular economy, a more effective supply chain could be achieved. The study aims to create a theoretical framework on how barriers can hinder implementation of a return system and to identify potential solutions. This is done by investigating two research questions, namely how industrial packaging is handled today and further to investigate the barriers and opportunities for a return system. The questions and the aim will be answered through a case study of the company Valmet AB where internal documentation has been examined and interviews has been conducted. In addition to this, theory has been reviewed and a life-cycle assessment has been performed to examine possible benefits of a return system. The study shows that there exist barriers and opportunities, where some of them are mentioned in the existing theory while others are scarcely investigated. In the relevance to previous research, new barriers that need further investigation have been identified, in relation to the studied industry. These are lack of internal communication, lack of time and location barriers. Moreover, the study shows that there exists environmental incentive for implementation of a return system. However, it is hard to guarantee economic profit, since there are unknown costs due to storage, personnel and refurbishing. Future research should further examine the new barriers in the context of combined theoretical dimensions.
Hållbarhet har blivit en allt viktigare aspekt för företag i hela världen. Att arbeta med miljöaspekter inom företag är ofta kopplat till högre vinster och ett bättre rykte. En viktig del, för att skapa en effektiv försörjningskedja inom företag, är den logistiska processen. Ett område inom logistik är omvänd logistik. Omvänd logistik avser aktiviteter med att ta tillbaka varor, information eller material från konsumenten eller kunden för att skapa mervärde. Genom att återanvända varor eller material kan omvänd logistik tillsammans med lösningar inom hantering bilda ett retursystem. Implementationen av ett retursystem kan relateras till cirkulär ekonomi, vilket är en teori som innebär effektivt resursutnyttjande inom ett cirkulärt kretslopp för företag. Genom att kombinera logistik, hanteringslösningar, retursystem och cirkulär ekonomi kan en effektiv försörjningskedja uppnås. Studien syftar till att skapa ett teoretiskt ramverk om vilka barriärer som kan hindra implementeringen av ett retursystem och att identifiera potentiella lösningar. Detta görs genom att undersöka två forskningsfrågor, nämligen hur industriell paketering hanteras idag och vidare att undersöka barriärer och möjligheter för ett retursystem. Frågorna och syftet besvaras genom en fallstudie på företaget Valmet AB där intern dokumentation har granskats och intervjuer har genomförts. Utöver detta har teori granskats och en livscykelanalys har utförts för att undersöka möjliga fördelar med ett retursystem. Studien visar att det finns både barriärer och möjligheter. Några av dem nämns i den befintliga teorin medan andra nämns fåordigt. Jämfört med tidigare forskning har några nya barriärer identifierats som behöver undersökas ytterligare, i relation till den undersökta industrin. Dessa är brist på intern kommunikation, brist på tid och platsbarriärer. Vidare visar studien att det finns starka miljöincitament för implementeringen av ett retursystem. Det är dock svårt att garantera ekonomisk vinst, eftersom det finns okända kostnader sett till lagring, personal och reparation. Framtida forskning bör fortsatt undersöka de nya barriärerna genom att kombinera olika teorier.

Thesis (MComm (Logistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Mobile phone networks form an integral part of economic and social development globally. Mobile phones have become an everyday part of life and it is hard to imagine a competitive economy without the availability of mobile communications. Emerging markets benefit most from the implementation of mobile technology and growth trends are outperforming earlier predictions. The most popular and sustainable payment model used by mobile phone networks in emerging markets is the pre paid mechanism used for the distribution of airtime. This mechanism brings about unique challenges for networks in emerging markets. In this thesis the importance of the mobile phone network pre paid value channel is introduced through an analysis of pre paid revenue. A brief introduction is given to the systems and products that contribute to the functioning of the pre paid value channel. The revenue generation process is described with regards to the pre paid sector of the market and an in-depth explanation of the importance of deferred revenue is given, how it is recorded and what role it fulfils in the generation of revenue. The complexity of the network environment, both technical and operational makes the use of a business automation and support system (BSS) a necessary tool for effective execution of tasks and processes within the network environment. These systems record information from a wide spectrum of available technical network resources and use this information to automate the flow of network products. The use of such a system for the calculation of deferred revenue is suggested. Saaty‟s Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) algorithm and the Elimination and Choice Expressing Reality (ELECTRE) method are used to compare the newly proposed method for the calculation of deferred revenue using a BSS. Using Saaty's algorithm to estimate the effectiveness of deferred revenue as reported through the use of a BSS yields favourable results for the proposed method. This helps to bridge the gap in the poorly researched mobile telecommunications industry. ELECTRE is used to substantiate the findings of the model using AHP and meaningful tests are done to motivate correctness and accuracy of the results obtained throughout. Most importantly, the findings were shared with academic and industry experts, adding meaningful resemblance to the goals set out to achieve.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Mobiele foon netwerke is wêreldwyd 'n onlosmaakbare deel van ekonomiese en sosiale ontwikkeling. Mobiele fone is deel van ons alledaagse lewe en dit is moeilik om 'n kompeterende ekonomie te bedink sonder die beskikbaarheid van mobiele kommunikasie. Ontluikende markte trek die meeste voordeel uit die implementering van mobiele tegnologie en groeitendense vertoon beter as wat vroeër voorspel is. Die mees gewilde en volhoubare betaalmetode wat deur mobiele foon netwerke in ontluikende markte gebruik word, is die voorafbetalingsmeganisme wat vir die verspreiding van lugtyd gebruik word. Hierdie meganisme bring unieke uitdagings vorendag in ontluikende markte. Die tesis beskryf die belangrikheid van die mobiele foon netwerk voorafbetalingswaardekanaal deur 'n analise te maak van vooruitbetalingsinkomste. 'n Kort oorsig oor die sisteme en produkte wat bydra tot die funksionering van die vooruitbetalingswaardekanaal word verskaf. 'n Beskrywing van die inkomste-genereringsproses vir die vooruitbetaling-sektor van die mark word verskaf en 'n in-diepte verduideliking van die belangrikheid van uitgestelde inkomste, hoe dit vasgelê word en watter rol dit speel in die generering van inkomste word verduidelik. Die kompleksiteit van die netwerkomgewing, beide op 'n tegniese en operasionele vlak, maak die gebruik van 'n besigheidsoutomatisering en ondersteuningsisteem (BSS) 'n noodsaaklike instrument vir die effektiewe uitvoer van take en prosesse binne die netwerkomgewing. Hierdie sisteme stoor informasie vanuit 'n wye spektrum van beskikbare tegniese netwerkbronne en gebruik die inligting om die vloei van netwerkprodukte te outomatiseer. Die gebruik van sodanige sisteem word voorgestel vir die berekening van uitgestelde inkomste. Saaty se Analitiese Hierargie Proses-algoritme (AHP) en die Eliminasie en Realiteit-Deur-Keuse Uitdrukkingsmetode (ELECTRE) word gebruik vir die vergelyking van die voorgestelde metode vir die berekening van uitgestelde inkomste deur middel van 'n BSS. Die gebruik van Saaty se algoritme om die effektiwiteit te bereken van uitgestelde inkomste soos gemeld deur die gebruik van 'n BSS, lewer gunstige resultate vir die voorgestelde metode. Dit vul 'n leemte in die swak nagevorsde mobiele telekommunikasie industrie. ELECTRE word gebruik om die bevindinge van die AHP-model te substansieer en betekenisvolle toetse word deurentyd gedoen om die korrektheid en akkuraatheid van die resultate te motiveer. Die belangrikste aspek van die navorsing is dat die bevindinge gedeel is met kenners binne die akademie sowel as die industrie, wat nou aansluit by die doelstellings wat aanvanklik beoog is.

This study deals with a municipal solid waste management system in which the strategic and tactical decisions are addressed simultaneously. In the system, the number and locations of the transfer facilities which serve to the particular solid waste pick-up points and the landfill are determined. Additionally, routing plans are constructed for the vehicles which collect the solid waste from the pick-up points by regarding the load capacity of the vehicles and shift time restrictions. We formulate this reverse logistics system as a location-routing problem with two facility layers. Mathematical models of the problem are presented, and an iterative capacitated-k-medoids clustering-based heuristic method is proposed for the solution of the problem. Also, a sequential clustering-based heuristic method is presented as a benchmark to the iterative method. Computational studies are performed for both methods on the problem instances including up to 1000 pick-up points, 5 alternative transfer facility sites, and 25 vehicles. The results obtained show that the iterative clustering-based method developed achieves considerable improvement over the sequential clustering-based method.

Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciências Empresariais - ramos Gestão Logística
A logística inversa dos resíduos surge como uma importante atividade na minimização do impacto causado no meio ambiente. A produção de resíduos é uma das maiores preocupações existentes na atualidade. Sendo os hospitais uma grande fonte de produção de resíduos, é importante o seu tratamento que difere consoante os graus de perigosidade. O presente estudo tem como objetivo estudar as práticas de logística inversa dos resíduos, levadas a cabo pelos hospitais do distrito de Setúbal, em Portugal. Para a concretização deste objetivo utilizou-se o método quantitativo de recolha de dados, nomeadamente, um inquérito por questionário, enviado por correio eletrónico. O estudo engloba, para além de questões gerais sobre logística inversa, as etapas da gestão de resíduos, nomeadamente, a triagem e acondicionamento, a recolha e o transporte interno e o armazenamento interno. Conclui-se que a maioria das práticas decorre do imperativo legal, existindo ainda muito a fazer na área da logística inversa hospitalar. Os resultados obtidos permitem concluir que, de uma forma geral, é feito muito pouco para além do que é obrigatório por lei.
The reverse logistics of waste emerged as an important activity in minimizing the impact on the environment. The production of waste is one of the biggest concerns that exist today. Having in consideration that hospitals have a great responsibility in terms of waste production, it is important to grant that the waste is treated considering it’s classification due to the hazardousness level. The objective of this study is to investigate the several reverse logistics waste practices, carried out by hospitals, in Setúbal district, in Portugal. In order to fulfill the objective of the present study, it was used a quantitative data collection method, namely, questionnaires sent by electronic mail. Apart from general reverse logistics questions, this study also analyses questions related with the waste management step: sorting and waste conditioning, the waste collecting system, the internal transport and storage system. It is concluded that the majority of practices resumes itself to the legal requirements, and there is a lot of work to be done in this area. The results obtained, allow us to conclude that in general is done very little beyond what is legally required.
The reverse logistics of waste emerged as an important activity in minimizing the impact on the environment. The production of waste is one of the biggest concerns that exist today. Having in consideration that hospitals have a great responsibility in terms of waste production, it is important to grant that the waste is treated considering it’s classification due to the hazardousness level. The objective of this study is to investigate the several reverse logistics waste practices, carried out by hospitals, in Setúbal district, in Portugal. In order to fulfill the objective of the present study, it was used a quantitative data collection method, namely, questionnaires sent by electronic mail. Apart from general reverse logistics questions, this study also analyses questions related with the waste management step: sorting and waste conditioning, the waste collecting system, the internal transport and storage system. It is concluded that the majority of practices resumes itself to the legal requirements, and there is a lot of work to be done in this area. The results obtained, allow us to conclude that in general is done very little beyond what is legally required.

Submitted by Nadir Basilio (nadirsb@uninove.br) on 2016-04-25T18:31:39Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Glauco Antonio Spina.pdf: 1128320 bytes, checksum: 29a9aed93ad1d424a61974aebbac5d2d (MD5)
Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T18:31:39Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Glauco Antonio Spina.pdf: 1128320 bytes, checksum: 29a9aed93ad1d424a61974aebbac5d2d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-11
An Easy Access, variety and increased consumption of medicines in different health sectors, are becoming an environmental problem and public health, since the incorrect disposal of waste, made by the people in the environment, for lack of a legislation , specific reflected directly in reverse logistics processes (LP) of expired medications. The creation of the National Solid Waste Policy (NSWP) seeks to alleviate and solve this need linked to the environment, but it is important to know the role of the pharmaceutical retail and propose shared responsibility actions in the waste management among all stakeholders. This research aims to analyze the participation of pharmaceutical managers or technicians responsible pharmacists in São Paulo in reverse logistics expired medications or unused front NSWP. The study is a qualitative exploratory case study - quantitative, involving interviews with active pharmaceutical retail and an active manager in LR area of drugs. The collected data were processed and analyzed descriptively using graphical and statistical form using SPSS software. The figures obtained in this study demonstrate that the reality of Reverse Logistics in the pharmaceutical retail in São Paulo is fragile and that the facilities are not integrated and prepared to share the LR with the other links in the chain. Of the 79 respondents (49% of the sample) is not sure to dispose of expired medicines in the post sale and, on the other hand, 113 respondents (70% of the sample) say they are knowledgeable of the harm caused to the environment by the irregular disposal of medicines.
O fácil acesso, a variedade e o aumento do consumo de medicamentos em diversos segmentos de saúde estão se tornando um problema ambiental e de saúde pública, uma vez que o descarte incorreto dos resíduos, feitos pela população no meio ambiente, por falta de uma legislação específica, reflete diretamente nos processos de Logística Reversa (LR) dos medicamentos vencidos. A criação da Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos (PNRS) busca amenizar e resolver essa necessidade ligada ao meio ambiente, porém é importante conhecer o papel do varejo farmacêutico e propor ações de responsabilidade compartilhada no gerenciamento de resíduos entre todos os stakeholders. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a participação de farmacêuticos gestores e farmacêuticos responsáveis técnicos, na cidade de São Paulo na Logística Reversa de medicamentos vencidos ou em desuso frente à PNRS. O trabalho é um estudo de caso de caráter exploratório, qualitativo e quantitativo, que envolve a realização de entrevistas com farmacêuticos atuantes no varejo e um gestor atuante na área de LR de medicamentos. Os dados coletados foram tratados e analisados de forma descritiva por meio de gráficos e de forma estatística utilizando software SPSS. Os números obtidos no presente estudo demonstram que a realidade da Logística Reversa no varejo farmacêutico no município de São Paulo é frágil e que os estabelecimentos não estão integrados e preparados para compartilhar a LR com os outros elos da cadeia. De um total de 161 entrevistados, 79 (49% da amostra) não sabem ao certo a destinação final de medicamentos vencidos no pós-consumo e, por outro lado, 113 entrevistados (70% da amostra) se dizem conhecedores dos malefícios causados ao meio ambiente pelo descarte irregular de medicamentos.

Aujourd’hui, la compétition croissante, l'expansion des marchés et les progrès de la technologie engendrent un raccourcissement du cycle de vie des processus de développement des produits afin d’en améliorer les performances en termes de délai, coût et qualité. Ce raccourcissement du cycle de vie a engendré un accroissement des volumes de déchet généré et des conséquences que cela peut avoir sur l’environnement. Au niveau de l’Union européenne, des directives ont été introduites, tels que la gestion des déchets d'équipements électriques et électroniques (WEEE), la restriction de l'utilisation de certaines substances dangereuses dans les équipements électriques et électroniques (RoHS) et les directives pour le traitement des batteries usagées (Battery); ces directives permettent de limiter l'utilisation et le recyclage des substances dangereuses nocives pour la santé et pour l'environnement.Ces nouvelles réglementations et normes, permettant de gérer de manière efficace les retours et la fin de vie des produits (recovery process), ont été mises en place afin d'obliger les entreprises à assumer leurs responsabilités en termes de gestion des produits en fin de vie. Certaines entreprises ont montré que les produits recyclés ou réutilisés peuvent être une source supplémentaire de revenu (recyclage des matériaux, ou réutilisation des composants après démontage) dans le processus de fabrication.Ces connaissances liées à la performance environnementale (au niveau des processus de conception, de production, de transport, d’entreposage, de récupération…) devraient êtres saisies, évaluées et capitalisées dans des bases de connaissances afin d’être prisent en compte durant les différents phases du cycle de vie des produits.Nos travaux de recherche proposent donc de développer une architecture de gestion des connaissances (Knowledge Management Architecture) basée sur un Système Multi-Agents. L’objectif est de proposer un système qui met l'accent sur les concepts de « durabilité des produits et des cycles de vie », en établissant des liens entre des Agents Logiciels détenteurs de connaissances liées à la réglementation environnementale et les Systèmes d’Information de type PLM. Ces interconnexions permettront aux décideurs de prendre en compte les impacts environnementaux dans leurs décisions et ceci à chaque phase du cycle de vie des produits
The increasing of competition, expanding markets and advanced technology create shorten lifecycle and the development process to improve product performance in terms of time, cost and quality. These shorten products lifecycle have led to increase volumes of waste generation and consequence impact to environment. EU directives have been introduced, such as Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS) and guidelines for the treatment of waste batteries (Battery), these directives are used to handle the hazardous substances which are harmful to human health and the environment.These regulations and standards have been put in place to force companies take their responsibilities on managing their products when reach to the end of life. Some companies have found that the returned product can be recycled or reused as an additional source of income (material recycling, or reuse of components after disassembly) in the manufacturing process.Knowledge related to the environmental performance (in terms of process design, production, transportation, storage, etc.) should be captured, evaluated and stored in knowledge base in order to share between users in different phases of the product lifecycle.Therefore, this research proposes a Knowledge Management Architecture based on a Multi-Agent System approach. The objective of this work is to propose a system that focuses on the concept of "sustainability” of products lifecycle by establishing the link between agents, who hold knowledge related to the environmental performances, and PLM system. The connection encourages companies considering the environmental impacts in their decision making at every stage of product lifecycle

O objetivo precípuo deste trabalho é estudar um modelo da cadeia de suprimento de ciclo fechado, que é baseado no comportamento sistêmico, por intermédio da Dinâmica de Sistemas como ferramenta de tomada de decisão. Primeiramente adapta-se este modelo à realidade brasileira e, em seguida, aplica-se em uma rede de reciclagem, no caso o programa municipal de coleta seletiva de São Carlos. A proposta consiste na aplicação de conceitos que acarretem em melhorias nos processos reversos e, com isso, viabilizando sua cadeia e incentivando a implementação destas atividades em redes logísticas tradicionais. Após uma vasta investigação de modelos quantitativos para a rede reversa, uma caracterização da organização é realizada. Com a definição da análise estratégica, o próximo passo foi o ajuste do modelo aos padrões brasileiros com a descrição do programa. Concluída a etapa de validação e parametrização do modelo, para coincidi-lo à sua execução na prática, foram atribuídos cenários para o planejamento da rede com o horizonte de cinco anos. A versatilidade da Dinâmica de Sistemas em incorporar fatores específicos de uma estrutura, além de sua simplicidade e flexibilidade para a elaboração do problema, comparado aos demais modelos quantitativos abordados, são premissas corroboradas no estudo. No mesmo sentido, através da simulação do modelo baseada em 30 cenários, o que se pôde constatar é que 16 cenários são atrativos/viáveis e sem o investimento no aumento da quantidade de material coletado, o cenário torna-se inviável e o programa não é autossuficiente. Ademais, das quatro variáveis decididas para análise, a \"capacidade de coleta\" possui fator decisivo para o desempenho do sistema, sem contar que tanto as variáveis \"tempo de coleta\" e \"índice per capita\" dependem da primeira para a evolução dos materiais coletados. Por fim, a variável \"custo de transporte\" afeta consideravelmente a performance do sistema.
The principal aim of this work is to study a model of the closed-loop supply chain, which is based on systemic behavior, through the System Dynamics as a decision making tool. Firstly this model is adapted to the Brazilian issues and then it is applied in a recycling network, in this case it is the municipal solid waste of São Carlos city. The proposal involves the concepts application that leads to improve reverse processes, thereby performing the chain profitable and encouraging these activities implementation in \"forward logistics networks\". After an extensive investigation of reverse chains quantitative models, an organization description is performed. Thereafter strategic analysis definition, the next step was setting the model into Brazilian patterns based on the program design. Accomplished the stage of model validation and parameterization, to match it for its implementation in practice, scenarios were assigned to the network horizon planning of five years. The System Dynamics versatility to incorporate specific factors in such structure, in addition to its simplicity and flexibility to formulate a problem compared to other quantitative models covered, they are assumptions corroborated in the study. To the same effect, through model simulation based on 30 scenarios, it was found that 16 scenarios are feasible and without an investment to the increase of collected material, those scenarios are unfeasible and the system is not self-sufficient. Furthermore, between the four variables decided to analyze, the \"collection capacity\" has decisive factor to the system performance, besides the \"collection time\" and \"index per capita\" variables depend on the first one to the increase of collected materials. Finally, the cost transportation variable affects substantially the system performance.

Introdução: no Brasil, ainda não há legislação específica, em nível nacional, sobre resíduos de equipamentos elétricos e eletrônicos (REEE). Com a regulamentação da Política Nacional de Resíduos Sólidos, as instituições de ensino superior (IES) no país se deparam com a necessidade de criar sistemas de gestão integrada que incluam logística reversa e disposição desses equipamentos ao final de sua vida útil. Objetivo: estudar a geração, fluxo e destino dos REEE de IES e propor diretrizes para a gestão institucional desses resíduos. Estudou-se o caso de duas IES, em dois cenários distintos: A) a Universidade de São Paulo (Brasil), sem influência de legislação específica sobre o tema e que não possui política de resíduos consolidada; B) A Universidade de Cádiz (Espanha), sob influência das Diretivas da União Europeia e de legislação nacional e que conta com política de resíduos e sistemas integrados de gestão de REEE. Método: análise quali/quantitativa em ambas as IES que constou de: I) Diagnóstico da geração, fluxo e destino dos REEE. Técnica utilizada: levantamento dos dados censitários dos bens que sofreram processo de baixa em um período de dez anos, no sistema de informação da Administração Patrimonial; II) Criação de nova base de dados, com inclusão de classificação dos REEE por tipo, peso médio e periculosidade; III) Pesquisa participativa com os responsáveis por setores envolvidos com a gestão interna de REEE; e IV) Observação sistemática, com registros fotográficos e de dados obtidos, em locais de destino de REEE e em nove Sistemas de Gestão Integrada de REEE (SIG-REEE) da Espanha. Resultados: o diagnóstico foi apresentado aos responsáveis por setores envolvidos com a gestão interna desses resíduos nas instituições, com objetivo de coletar sugestões para um plano de gestão de REEE que atendesse às suas necessidades e expectativas. Os resultados desta pesquisa levaram à proposta de diretrizes para a gestão institucional de REEE, orientando a execução das ações de controle de seus impactos econômicos, sociais, ambientais e de saúde de forma integrada e que seja sustentável e possa ser adaptado a quaisquer tipos de instituição, com flexibilidade para atender a diferentes necessidades e realidades. Conclusão: I) Os procedimentos adotados atualmente nas IES estudadas não atendem aos requisitos fundamentais de sustentabilidade. II) Constatou-se que fatores internos determinam os caminhos da gestão externa do REEE. III) As diretrizes propostas para gestão integrada de REEE baseiam-se em três etapas principais: a) planejamento para aquisição do EEE; b) vida útil; c) gestão de REEE. O estudo conclui que para se conseguir um sistema de gestão sustentável e efetivo, é necessário considerar todas as etapas do ciclo de vida do produto, a partir do planejamento para sua aquisição, até seu destino final. Para que o sistema de gestão de REEE em IES seja efetivo, propõe-se a integração da gestão de EEE/REEE
Introduction: in Brazil, there is no specific law at the national level for the disposal of electrical and electronic equipment waste (WEEE). With the National Solid Waste Policy regulations, Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in the country are faced with the need to create integrated management systems that include reverse logistics and disposal of such equipment at the end of its life time. Objective: to study the generation, flow, and destination of WEEE from HEI and propose guidelines for developing an institutional management system for such waste. Two HEIs in two distinct scenarios were analyzed: A) the University of São Paulo (Brazil), which operates without the influence of legislation on the subject and does not have a consolidated waste policy; and B) The University of Cádiz (Spain), which operates under European Union Directives and national legislation, featuring an integrated waste management policy on WEEE. Methods: qualitative/quantitative analyses in both institutions consisted of: i) Diagnosis of the generation, flow, and destination of WEEE based on census data on goods that have undergone a process of decline over a period of ten years in the Administração Patrimonial (Asset Management) information systems; ii) Creation of a new database, which includes the classification of WEEE by type, average weight, and hazard risk; iii) Research with the participation of the responsible parties of the sectors involved with the internal management of WEEE, and iv) Systematic observation, with photographic records and retrieved data from WEEE destinations and from nine Integrated Management Systems of WEEE (SIG-REEE) in Spain. Results: the diagnoses were presented to the responsible parties of the sectors involved with the internal management of such waste in institutions, with the objective of gathering suggestions for a WEEE management system that meets needs and expectations. The results led to the proposal of guidelines for the preparation of an institutional WEEE management plan, to orient the implementation of sustainable practices in order to better control economic, social, environmental, and health impact in an integrated manner that is sustainable and can be adapted to any type of institution, with enough flexibility to meet different needs and realities. Conclusion: I) the procedures currently in effect in HEI do not meet the core requirements of sustainability II) It was noted that internal factors determine the paths of external WEEE management. III) The guidelines proposed in this study for integrated management of WEEE were based on three main stages: a) acquisition of the EEE, b) useful life period; c) WEEE management. The study concludes that to achieve a sustainable and effective management system, it is necessary to consider all stages of the life cycle of a product, from planning to acquisition, to its final destination. The integration of EEE/WEEE management is recommended

Dans une chaîne logistique traditionnelle, les opérations de production, de stockage et de distribution sont traitées séparément en raison de la complexité de la planification conjointe de ces opérations et le manque d'informations partagées entre les parties prenantes. Aujourd'hui, pour faire face à la concurrence féroce que connaît le marché mondial, les entreprises sont obligées de planifier conjointement ces activités afin de bénéficier des avantages économiques et environnementaux engendrés par cette intégration. Parmi les problèmes d’optimisation existants dans la littérature, le problème de la planification intégrée qui optimise conjointement les décisions de production, de gestion des stocks, de distribution et de tournées de véhicules, a récemment fait l'objet d'une attention considérable, malgré sa nature NP-difficile. En effet, ses avantages en termes de synchronisation entre les processus, de réduction des coûts et d’amélioration du niveau de service peuvent être importants. En outre, l’optimisation de ce problème dans le contexte des chaînes logistiques en boucle fermée avec gestion des Produits en Fin de Vie (PFV) conduit au développement de chaînes logistiques de plus en plus durables. De plus, les inquiétudes croissantes sur les enjeux environnementaux liés aux activités industrielles ont conduit à l'émergence de politiques de contrôle des émissions carbone. La prise en compte de ces réglementations peut conduire à un impact positif sur la responsabilité environnementale de l’entreprise. Pour répondre à ces défis, l’objectif de cette thèse consiste à concevoir des modèles et de développer des approches d’optimisation pour résoudre un problème de planification intégrée des opérations de production, de ré-usinage, de stockage et de distribution directe-inverse. Nous avons considéré une chaîne logistique en boucle fermée composée d’une ligne de production de produits neufs, d’une ligne de ré-usinage des PFV retournés, deux stocks pour les produits réutilisables et les PFV à ré-usiner, ainsi que des clients ayant des demandes dynamiques en livraison et en collecte. Le but est de déterminer les quantités optimales à produire, ré-usiner et stocker, ainsi que l’ordre de passage chez les clients afin de satisfaire leurs demandes simultanément en livraison et en collecte, tout en minimisant le coût total dû aux opérations induites. Dans un premier temps, un modèle linéaire en nombres entiers est proposé pour optimiser la chaîne logistique en considérant un ou plusieurs véhicules avec capacité limitée. La deuxième partie de la thèse porte sur le développement d’une heuristique de décomposition à deux phases pour résoudre le modèle intégré étendu. La dernière partie de la thèse est consacrée à l’intégration des émissions du dioxyde de carbone dans les décisions de production, de ré-usinage, de stockage et de distribution et d'étudier le comportement des niveaux d'émissions de carbone dans le cadre de la politique de plafonnement et d'échange de droits d'émission de carbone. Des expérimentations numériques permettent de démontrer l’applicabilité et les limites de nos approches
In a traditional supply chain, production, inventory and distribution operations are treated separately due to the complexity of jointly planning these operations and the lack of information shared among stakeholders. Today, in order to face the fierce competition in the global market, companies are forced to jointly plan these activities in order to benefit from the economic and environmental benefits generated by this integration. Among the optimization problems existing in the literature, the integrated planning problem which jointly optimizes production, inventory management, distribution and vehicle routes decisions, has recently received considerable attention, despite its NP-hardiness. Indeed, its benefits in terms of synchronization between processes, cost reduction and improved service level can be significant. In addition, the optimization of this problem in the context of closed-loop supply chains with End-of-Life Product (EOL) management leads to the development of increasingly sustainable supply chains. Furthermore, growing concerns about environmental issues linked to industrial activities have led to the emergence of policies to control carbon emissions. Taking these regulations into account can have a positive impact on the company's environmental responsibility. To meet these challenges, the objective of this thesis is to design models and develop optimization approaches to solve an integrated planning problem of production, remanufacturing, storage and direct-reverse distribution operations. We considered a closed-loop supply chain consisting of a production line for new products, a remanufacturing line for returned EOL products, two types of inventories for reusable products and EOL ones to be remanufactured, as well as customers with dynamic demands for delivery and pickups. The goal is to determine the optimal amounts to produce, remanufacture and store, as well as the order of visiting customers in order to meet their requests simultaneously for delivery and pickup, while minimizing the total cost due to the involved operations. First, a linear integer model is proposed to optimize the supply chain system by considering one or more vehicles with limited capacity. The second part of the thesis concerns the development of a two-phase decomposition heuristic to solve the extended integrated model. The last part of the thesis is devoted to the integration of carbon dioxide emissions into production, remanufacturing, inventory and distribution decisions and to study the behavior of carbon emission levels in the context of cap-and-trade policy. Numerical experiments make it possible to demonstrate the applicability and the limits of our approaches

碩士
國立中央大學
工業管理研究所
101
Nowadays, with strong economic development has led to a significant increase of the waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). In order to reduce their negative impacts on the environment and human, at the end of their product lifecycles, their wastes need to be properly handled, processed, disposed, and if applicable, remanufactured, recycled or reused. Based on the analysis of the waste EEE (WEEE) reverse logistic network, this paper presents a mathematical programming model which minimizes the total processing cost of multiple types of WEEE. In the proposed model, the recycling system consists of four primary stages of process such as collection sites, quality testing and disassembly sites, treatment sites (repair, recycling), and final sites (disposal, product, component reuse, and material customers). The model is solved by the LINGO. Based on the proposed model, the optimal facilities and the materials flows can be determined. Finally, the research will do the analysis for several the electronic products including projectors & loudspeakers.

Yes
The purpose of this paper is to determine how best to reduce, reuse and dispose of household waste medicines in the National Health Service (NHS) (UK). Through a combination of literature review and empirical work, this research investigates the existing household waste medicines reverse logistics (RL) system and makes recommendations for improvement by benchmarking it against household waste batteries RL. The viability and feasibility of these recommendations are evaluated through in-depth interviews with healthcare professionals and end user surveys. The batteries RL system appears to be a more structured and effective system with more active engagement from actors/stakeholders in instigating RL practices and for this very reason is an excellent comparator for waste medicines RL practices. Appropriate best practices are recommended to be incorporated into the waste medicines RL system, including recapturing product value, revised processing approaches, system cooperation and enforcement, drivers and motivations and system design and facilitation. This study offers academics and professionals an improved insight into the current household waste medicines RL system and provides a step towards reducing an existing gap in this under-researched area. A limitation is that only a small sample of healthcare professionals were involved in subjectively evaluating the feasibility of the recommendations, so the applicability of the recommendations needs to be tested in a wider context and the cost effectiveness of implementing the recommendations needs to be analysed. Reducing, reusing and properly disposing of waste medicines contribute to economic sustainability, environmental protection and personal and community safety. The information retrieved from analysing returned medicines can be used to inform prescribing practice so as to reduce unnecessary medicine waste and meet the medicine optimisation agenda. This paper advocates learning from best practices in batteries RL to improve the waste medicines RL design and execution and supports the current NHS agenda on medicine waste reduction (DoH, 2012). The recommendations made in the paper not only aim to reduce medicine waste but also to use medicines effectively, placing the emphasis on improving health outcomes.

Reverse logistics is an important process that is often misunderstood. Reverse logistics can cause considerable cost, but provide numerous opportunities. Many organisations do not understand the correct processes and procedures to follow and how to manage reverse logistics efficiently. The focus of this study was on best practices in reverse logistics. A best practice framework was developed to help organisations overcome problems and manage their reverse logistics more efficiently. This study adopted a mixed method research approach with both qualitative and quantitative elements. A comprehensive literature study was conducted to develop a conceptual best practice framework in reverse logistics and a survey was conducted to seek inputs from industry in South Africa to refine the framework into a workable instrument in practice. The study concluded that the best practices identified in literature have proven to be important in practice, and applying such practices will enable organisations to manage their reverse logistics more efficiently.
Business Management
M. Com. (Logistics)

yes
Purpose This study aims to provide insights into the scale and use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in managing medical devices in the NHS, with a focus on Reverse Exchange (RE) systems, as part of the broader Reverse Logistics (RL) systems, within which medical devices are returned and exchanged. Design/Methodology/Approach Two case studies were conducted with NHS Hospital Trusts, while another was built upon secondary resources. Primary findings were triangulated with information collected from the NHS Trusts’ reports, direct observation and a preliminary round of consultations with 12 healthcare professionals working in other NHS Trusts or Integrated Equipment Community Services. Findings The findings suggest that the sophistication of ICT implementation increases with the risks and value associated with medical devices. Operational attributes are derived from ICT implementations which can positively impact on RE performance. The forces that drive the adoption of ICT in the NHS include pressure from government, business partners and patients, competitive pressure, perceived benefits, organisation size, top management support and the availability of sufficient resources. Obstacles are mainly centred around the lack of sufficient resource. Research limitations/implications Although the Trusts that participated in this research are representative of different regions, the generalisation of the study results may be limited by the size of the sample organisations, so the results can only provide insights into the research problem. As this work is exploratory in nature, there is insufficient data on which to form definitive recommendations. Practical implications NHS Trusts may use the 6 operational attributes identified and verified by the case studies to benchmark their ICT implementation for device management. The actual and potential benefits of ICT implementation could inform technology development and encourage the uptake of ICT in healthcare. Governmental bodies can utilise this information to develop directives to actively drive ICT adoption in device management and the associated RE system. A well-considered training programme is needed to improve staff ICT skills in order to fully realise the potential of ICT systems which support the effective RE of medical devices. Originality/value The results suggest that ICT supported reverse exchange of medical devices backs up the supply chain reduces capital costs and medical risks and, facilitates the redeployment of funds to frontline medical treatment.

We report on an industrial project in which we developed an inventory model to provide decision support for the design and deployment of the field service support system for a remanufacturable product. The product was a dialysis unit for home use. Each unit that was installed in a home would eventually be removed due to failure, or the need for preventative maintenance, or the termination of the service. Upon removal, each unit was shipped to a central depot for re-manufacturing so that it could be returned to service. We develop a model to determine the inventory requirements at each regional depot, and then describe how to use the model to determine the inventory requirements in the two-echelon system consisting of the central facility and the regional depots.
Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

碩士
國立屏東科技大學
工業管理系所
97
In recent years, due to the depletion of resource on the earth and the highly emphasized topics of global warming, the environmental expense and raw materials cost are increasing in total cost of the business operation. In order to enhance the competitiveness and maximize the profit, enterprises need to think of how to make the most of the resource; minimize the squander; and reduce the material cost by manipulating a recyclable and renewable system. This study is based on a recyclable goods inventory system, focusing on the recycling and remanufacturing of waste papers, and formulizing the waste paper collector’s and manufacturer’s profit by considering their cost individually. Following, a mathematical model is developed to obtain the optimal recycling price of collector, and the manufacturer’s EOQ and EPQ to both of wood pulp supplier and collector will be calculated accordingly. And this will help to figure out the blending proportion of raw wood pulp to recycled paper pulp in industrial usage paper. In the end, a decision model is formulated to maximize the profit of each party.

The diploma work deals with the analysis of the logistic chain of the company Friall s.r.o., which is a producer of frozen potato specialities. Based on this analysis I wanted to discover weak points in functionality of the logistic chain and find suitable precautionary measures as well as solutions leading to an improvement of the current situation. The diploma work is focused on the raw material entry and self-production of the products.

碩士
國立臺灣科技大學
工業管理系
97
Due to the harmful environmental effects of disposal, the emphasis has been shifting towards recycling. This thesis presents a cost minimization model for a multi-type material waste reverse logistic system. For each waste after recycling, the material type should be the same or only one kind of regeneration material. The recycling system is constructed with 4 stages of process e.g. origination site, collection site, recycling facility and manufacturing. From the origination site, a certain type of waste can go to collection site or directly to the recycling facility based on consideration that minimum cost for entire system. As references we refer to WEEE to determine the recycling rate for each material type. By using the optimization software to solve the methodical model, we found that the volume of waste in this system will influence the reverse logistic cost seriously. When the collection site can compress the waste into smaller volume, the cost will be lower than the collection site can not compress the waste.

碩士
長榮大學
資訊管理學系(所)
103
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is designed to integrate business processes and thus provide a complete information system, so that enterprises employed ERP systems can improve the competitiveness of enterprise. Although the existing ERP systems are mostly designed based on forward logistics processes, it cannot provide support to reverse logistics processes arising from recent environmental issues. In addition, to further enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, they must also take into account the reverse logistics in order to reduce costs. As to this issue, through literatures review, we found studies related to the reverse logistics information systems are very few. We first investigated and reviewed documents to identify the needs of reverse logistics, and then conducted system analysis and design based on existing ERP systems to incorporate the concept of reverse logistics processes. We use Unified Model Language as a tool to present the results of our analysis and design, respectively. The result of this study shows there are six function requirements of reverse logistics, including customer returns, warranty issues, expired merchandise returns, the agreement to return, manufacturer's returns and environmental returns. Our analysis and design can be referred as enterprise wants to develop reverse logistics ERP systems. In the future, the reverse logistics information systems can further be integrated with the cloud or mobile devices, so that they can be more efficient. Also, the future study can explore the possibility to be integrated to supply chain.

碩士
國立中央大學
工業管理研究所
100
This study focuses on single manufacturer and single retailer in supply chain. In the reverse logistic, retailer is commissioned by manufacturer to collect the end-of -life products from consumer, the recovery quantity is a multiplicative function, and it depends on recovery price. After remanufacturing, the ends-of -life products’ quality like the new one; they have the same retail price in market. By replacing part of the higher manufacturing costs with lower manufacturing cost can increase the overall supply chain profit, which make the reverse logistic more competitive to join the supply chain. The purpose of the study is to maximize the channel profit by different strategies, we use different contract decision to coordinate the decentralize channel member that make them achieve win-win situation. In order to use the numerical study and sensitivity analysis to obtain further information about how these parameters influence the profit function, we take the Toner Cartridge for example to derive the parameters of our model.

碩士
明新科技大學
工程管理研究所
93
Reverse Logistics is a new concept that deals with the management of the products in the reverse way, i.e., it is the process of managing all the flow of returned products and information from the point of consumption to the origin. The actual development of reverse logistics strategies in many companies across the world makes it a very interesting topic to work with. It is expected that in few years it will be a crucial element in determining the way in which products will be designed, produced and distributed. The magnitude and impact of reverse logistics varies with industry, channel position and channel choice. However, it is clear that the overall amount of reverse logistics activities in the economy is large and still growing. In this paper we consider a reverse logistics system with manufacturing, remanufacturing, and disposal operations. Customer demands must be fulfilled from serviceable stock which has two sources: the remanufacturing of base items or manufacturing of new items. Used items are either put into base item stock or disposed of. To coordinate manufacturing, remanufacturing, and disposal operations efficiently, the PUSH and PULL strategies are used for inventory control. This study proposes a research structure to evaluate the impact of inventory policies and decision variables (including remanufacturing and manufacturing related variables, order related variables, and cost related variables) on system performance in the reverse logistics system with multiple products. Of the two inventory policies, the preferences are investigated with respect to different performance indexes. An example is used to demonstrate the research structure. Based on the results of the example, order quantity homogeneity (OQH) has a major impact on system performance with respect to all performance indexes. Furthermore, the PULL policy is recommended if the inventory level of serviceable items is used as the major performance index. The PUSH policy is recommended if the service level or the inventory level of base items is used as the major performance index.

碩士
國立東華大學
企業管理學系
97
In recent years, the awareness and issues regarding Corporate Social Responsibility are taken seriously by business, government, and consumers. Reverse logistics has also gained greater attention. So far most research in Taiwan uses simulation to probe into the uncertainty of reverse logistics. However, there is no overall research on reverse logistics implementations. This research synthesizes literatures and references on reverse logistics and uses the findings as the basis for analyzing the recycling of electronic products in Taiwan. By mailing survey questionnaire to 14 brand-name electronic product manufacturers and to 13 officially certified recycling treatment plants, we obtained 10 and 6 final samples, respectively. To supplement the information gained from the questionnaires, we also interviewed a number of managers from these sample respondents. Through analysis of the results in questionnaires and from interviews, we found that the recycling of electronic products is mainly processed by the third party, with the manufacturers paying fees to the Environment Protection Association. The reason for the manufacturers doing it this way is that the manufacturing factory of the electronic products is usually located overseas and the business operation in Taiwan is mainly marketing. To engage in recycling, the firm must export the collected product for further processing. Considering the cost, market scale, exportation efforts, most of the firms choose to let the local treatment plant handle the recycling products by paying a fee to the EPA. But there is still one brand-name firm which handles its own reverse logistics. The reasons for adopting this are economic benefits, product attributes, customer type, product life cycle, product design, and recycling rate. Economical benefit is the main driving factor for this practice. In general, there is no cooperation between the brand-name firms and the recycling treatment plants, so they are actually two independent systems. The business difficulties recycling treatment plants face include competition among plants, operational regulations and recycled product value. The ways to improve the situation would be through more effective regulations, stabilizing and promoting subsidy, and the cooperation with brand-name firms. Since the reverse logistics of the auto industry is more fully developed in Taiwan, this research compares the two recycling industries to understand the difference between the recycling of the electronic products and auto spare parts. Comparisons are made using the condition and the quality and market acceptance of the spare parts, the environmental design, the recycling process, the recycling regulation, the competition of recycling plants, the pricing structure of the used parts and the cooperation mode between the firms and the recycling plants.

碩士
國立成功大學
製造工程研究所碩博士班
92
Because the relevant topics of environmental protection become more and more important around the world, many countries, such as Germany, Holland, Japan, European Union, Taiwan, etc., have to take the issue into consideration, then advocate the concepts about green manufacturing and sustainable management in order to utilize the natural resources and to decrease the harm when enterprises handle the wastes they produce. Most of the issues discussed in literature emphasize the problem about recycling products rather than recycling containers. In consideration of the enterprises will profit by utilizing the containers. In this paper, we build a simulation model including the concept of reverse logistics in order to discuss the case about the transportation containers in Toyota automobile industry. Empirical results show that the performance using the reusable containers is better than the expendable containers. Furthermore, we discuss the issue about the concept of reusable containers in the model and find the best economic quantities by using a method integrate bisection algorithm into artificial intelligence search algorithm.

碩士
國立嘉義大學
運輸與物流工程研究所
94
The product recovery has received much attention from many organizations such as the government and the public since many disposal materials have negative impacts on the environment. With the evolution of recycling technology, the recoverable manufacturing systems have been used to minimize the negative effects of disposal materials such as hazardous wastes and manufacturing refuse on the surroundings. Since the remanufactured products were accepted by many consumers in the last decade, many business establishments incorporate the reverse logistics system into their manufacturing systems for the purpose of enhancing their corporate images, competitive advantages and profits. Accordingly, many researchers have paid attention to the problems associated with reverse logistics systems. At present, the systems with fixed recycling positions are mainly adapted in Taiwan. While making the decision of recycling positions, firms should consider not only the convenient resource recovery channel for the public but also their economies of scale. This paper developed two mathematical models to deal with the problems of determining the applicable recycling location for a recycling manufacturing system. The objective of this thesis is to maximize the total discounted profit over a finite planning horizon. The problem is formulated as a constrained integer programming model. This model cannot be solved optimally using the classical optimization approaches or commercial optimization software. The above model views price variables are exogenous variables. As an extension of this model, the previous model is extended to a case where the pricing is viewed as a decision variable. This paper developed a heuristic approach to solve both models. A series of numerical examples were presented to compare the efficiency and quality of the proposed approach with LINGO 9.0 software and GAMS 2.5. Numerical examples indicate that the heuristic algorithm is very efficient computationally.

碩士
國立臺北科技大學
工業工程與管理研究所
95
In traditional supply chain management, the researchers focus on the production procedure in which the materials/WIPs/products are processed from the supplier, manufacturer, and distributor to the customer. However, several finish products, which have shipped to the customer, are needed to be retrieved and delivered back to the supplier or manufacturer to perform reworking for quality ensuring. The logistics system with retrieval processes, is called reverse logistics, is an important issues in the complete supply chain management recently. In this research, we focus on the multi-echelon supply chain design problem with reverse logistics and the main objective is to develop a mathematical model to make the partner selection and production-distribution planning strategies. Owing to the product loss and retrieve, and multi-period are considered in this problem the particle swarm optimization algorithm based model is developed and used to solve it. Based on the proposed model, the near-optimal supply chain design strategy is made with fulfilling the customer demand and capacities of all feasible elected partners. Finally, this model is applied on a multi-echelon supply chain system so as to show the ease of fulfillment and illustrate the feasible quality solution of real world application.

碩士
國立中央大學
工業管理研究所
99
Reverse logistic have received increasing attention in the last few decades since extreme uncertainty of recycling and remanufacturing processes bring significant impact to inventory management. The thesis considers the (s,S) periodic review policy for a pull inventory with demands following Gamma distributions, new materials with used materials to produce new items. The used materials have two supply sources; one is internal recycling, the other is external procurement from a recycling company. We use the Arena simulation software to model the remanufacturing process. Objective of this (s,S) inventory management system is to control external old materials order and the internal recycle quantities that minimize the total expected costs. We also study the relationship between recycle rate and inventory in the situation that remanufacturer has two material sources.

碩士
國立高雄第一科技大學
運籌管理研究所
99
As a result of global environment trend, industries start to emphasize supply chain system concept and integration to promote competition. In the past, supply chain is forward logistic which highlight process relationship among supplier, manufacture, wholesaler, and end customer. However, reverse logistics is getting more and more attention because of product life cycle curtailment, environmental consciousness, legislation, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Therefore, industries have to concern how to expand reverse logistics in competitive conditions those that. Reverse logistics is more complexity and inscrutable compared to forward logistic because its motion timing, place, quantity and destruction state. Thus, the point of system dynamics is to settle system problem of non-linear and multiple complex feedbacks. Consequently, the research paper structure the frame of reverse logistic due to system dynamics, and proceed simulated experiment via simulated software, meanwhile, it analyze benefit of reverse logistic by modulating software parameters. The paper simulate reverse logistics process via Vensim simulation software, by way of test and verify, we bring up some points focus on demand, policy and technique. And bring up four conclusions in accordance with logistical developed trend On balance, the research model can use as determination basis.