Design of multi-tier multi-time horizon closed-loop supply chain network with sustainability under uncertain environment for Indian paper industry

ABSTRACT

Due to increased awareness and strictly imposed legislations, Supply Chain (SC) managers are often forced to include recovery system in their SC. Recovery systems make use of 3 Rs, namely, recycling, reuse and remanufacturing which results in the transformation of traditional SC into closed-loop supply chain (CLSC). Recovery of discarded product in such forms is an effective way to deal with afterlife of product, leading to sustainable development. In this work, a bi-objective CLSC model has been developed for the paper industry under uncertain environment. The first objective of the proposed model is to maximise SC surplus, and the second objective is to incorporate sustainability through minimising carbon content by reducing the number of trucks between various echelons of CLSC network. In the proposed model, sustainability has been considered by two means: first to reduce the demand of next period by refurbishing some of the product collected from the customers and second is to reduce the raw material requirement at vendor side by using some of the recycled and usable product from the recycling centre. Further, various numerical illustrations are being performed and results are interpreted for a case paper industry which validates the application of the proposed model.

KEYWORDS:

• Closed-loop supply chain
• mixed-integer linear programming (MILP)
• Supply Chain Network Design (SCND)
• sustainability
• uncertainty

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kamlesh Pant

Kamlesh Pant holds a master degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from National Institute of Technology Raipur, India. He received gold medal for excellence performance in his M.Tech degree. His areas of research include close loop supply chain, optimization techniques, multi criteria decision making and industrial engineering.

Vinay Surendra Yadav

Vinay Surendra Yadav is a research scholar in the department of mechanical engineering at National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur, India. He also holds a master degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from NIT Raipur, India. He received gold medal for excellence performance in his M.Tech degree. His areas of research include supply chain management, optimization techniques, omnichannel, blockchain and multi criteria decision making. He has published more than 10 papers in international journals and conferences.

A. R. Singh

Dr. A. R. Singh is working as an assistant professor in the department of mechanical engineering at National Institute of Technology Raipur, India. He also holds a PhD degree in mechanical engineering from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad, India. He completed his Master of Technology degree in CAD-CAM from MNNIT, Allahabad while Bachelor of Engineering degree in mechanical engineering from U.P.T.U, India. His areas of specialization are operation research, supply chain management, optimization techniques, multi criteria decision making, blockhain, lean six sigma and education management. He has published more than 50 papers in international journals and conferences.