Multi-Level Competitive Closed Loop Supply Chain Network Design: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Limited natural resources and unconscious consumption have led to a substantial increase in the rate of processing waste material instead of raw materials in recent years and changed the dynamics of Supply Chain Management (SCM) by making the industrial environment more competitive. The interest in Closed Loop Supply Chain (CLSC) design and optimization is increased with great care being taken to reverse logistics in order to respond to customer pressures as well as environmental concerns associated with the increasing number of end-of-life products. CLSC has extensive literature and many models have been developed to optimize supply chain costs. Most of the literature deals with single supply chains and ignores existing competing supply chains. However, in today's competitive markets, supply chains are integrated with each other by several competitive companies and work together to gain more market share. In such an environment, there are different forms of competition within and between supply chains. In this context, the paper addresses the problem of design and optimization of distribution networks in multi-level competitive CLSC management consisting of two producers, a collection & recycling center and customers trying to improve sustainable consumption by increasing the willingness to return used products with some incentives for product recovery. In order to reach a consensus solution for decision makers who have a different purpose in CLSC management, four different Interactive Fuzzy Programming (IFP) approaches are used and the results are analyzed.