Goal programming and multi-criteria methods in remanufacturing and reverse logistics: Systematic literature review and survey

Abstract

Environmental concerns, largely caused by a linear take-make-dispose model of manufacturing, have raised the need to incorporate the flow of used products to capture their residual value, thus shifting the traditional linear model to a more circular one. Remanufacturing is considered a key element in achieving circularity goals, as it offers greater environmental and economic benefits than other existing used product recovery options. The incorporation of used products in the supply chain poses challenging problems in which it is often necessary to consider trade-offs between different conflicting objectives, where multi-criteria decision-making methods, such as goal programming (GP), are mostly used. Since the last known review of the literature about these topics considers publications up to the year 2017, and it is observed that the number of publications has been growing significantly in recent years, it seems appropriate to carry out a more up-to-date review. This paper presents a review of the recent literature on GP and other multi-criteria methods applied to closed-loop supply chain systems, with focus on reverse logistics and remanufacturing as one of the most frequently recovery option used in the industry. The review was carried out in a systematic manner, using four of the most recognized scientific document repositories and a period of time for publications ranging from 2011 to 2021. After a detailed filtering process of almost 150 documents initially found, a final database of 38 documents was obtained for an in-depth review. The 38 documents were classified in three categories: supply chain management and design, strategic decisions in circular economy, and production planning. Half of the documents reviewed fall into the category of production planning, with a particular interest in disassembly planning issues and the advantages offered by technological advances such as the Internet of Things (IoT). It was observed that most of the investigations consider the economic and environmental dimensions, leaving aside the social dimension. This confirms a trend previously observed in the literature. In addition, a global analysis of the collected documents was carried out to determine which are the most used decision-making criteria for closed-loop systems with product recovery. Legal, production planning and life cycle assessment aspects that deserve further study in the future are also suggested.