Reverse Logistics Models and Algorithms: Optimizing WEEE Recovery Systems

Abstract

This is a summary of the author’s PhD thesis supervised by Jose Luis González-Velarde (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico) and Belarmino Adenso-Díaz (Universidad de Oviedo, Spain) and defended on October 11, 2010 at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request. This research focuses on Reverse Logistics. Its main objective is to develop mathematical programming models and algorithms to optimize emerging Waste of Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) collection systems. The thesis begins with an overview of the WEEE collection process and identifies key strategic decision areas which impact the performance of a collection system. It specifically identifies three closely interrelated problems within the logistics–manufacturing interface: network design, vehicle routing and cellular manufacturing (disassembly). Even though there is plenty of published literature on each of these individual problems, this research bridges a gap in existing literature on vehicle routing and cellular disassembly systems. The research aims to provide efficient solution approaches to optimize WEEE collection systems, therefore it uses real-world data and case studies (when possible) to test the proposed solution procedures. Computational results using real data show that the proposed methods outperform real existing approaches to reverse logistics.