Abstract
Keywords - Multi echelon, reverse logistics, gatekeeping policies, product life cycle, nonlinear programming
Abstract - This paper in Logistics Management aims at developing and presenting a quadratic optimization formulation for a multi echelon model in reverse logistics operations under deterministic assumptions. The model should be seen as an attempt to draw attention to the importance of reverse logistics activities, and encourage possible participants who may seek in the future to adopt it. A major issue for all the products that are entering the reverse logistics flow is that of their quality. The state of quality issue is critical at the stage of selection, where a decision must be reached as to whether a product will be reused, demanufactured, remanufactured, refurbish, recycled or disposed. Quality aspects of the products are directly related to product-life cycle. The proposed model will take into consideration from the very beginning, at the collection sites level, different levels of quality with respect to the returns accepted in the reverse logistics flow. This formulation eliminates the processing costs at the collection sites level by limiting them to a minimum. A set number of levels of quality for the returned items at each collection facility (i.e. retail store) are suggested in order to quantify the qualitative aspects of the returns.