Blockchain-Enabled Sustainable Supply Chain under Information Sharing and Recovery Quality Efforts

Abstract

The objective of this study is to establish an efficient contractual coordination model for advancing the supply chain (SC) towards sustainability with blockchain technology. The problem of SC unsold product remanufacturing is investigated under the influence of efforts on recovery quality and information sharing within blockchain technology. Firstly, a functional model describes how the recovery quality affected by the added effort and demand of the remanufactured products is affected by the price. Secondly, the downstream SC faced market uncertainty with consumer sensitivity analyzed, and the SC information-sharing systems were reconsidered in order to improve consumer satisfaction. Then, under the conditions of information sharing and recovery quality efforts, the decentralized SC decision-making mode is discussed. The above demonstrates that the SC unsold products remanufacturing under the decentralized decision-making mode cannot be coordinated. To prove the efficiency of unsold products remanufacturing we investigated the centralized SC mode as a benchmark, which is known as the most efficient system. Finally, in order to effectively coordinate the whole chain, a mechanism of “cost and revenue sharing” is proposed, and the constraints of supplier’s choice of remanufacturing are given. The results show that the “cost and revenue sharing” mechanism can effectively coordinate the SC and the expected profits of downstream and upstream will be in win–win condition. Moreover, the “cost and revenue sharing” mechanism in a sustainable SC unsold product remanufacturing essentially builds an incentive among members to improve the efficiency of existing resource usage and the environmental implications.