Considering that consumers are more willing to buy products online, companies are increasingly selling remanufactured products online through e-commerce platforms. Notwithstanding the high attention it elicits from researchers and companies, the study about the remanufacturing trading platform is in its infancy. Thus, we investigate 20 remanufacturing trading platforms related nowadays and make a gap analysis among them in terms of: (i) business model, (ii) product display, (iii) delivery products, (iv) quality assurance and after-sales service, (v) product review and star rate and (vi) transaction and payment. On this basis, we analyze features and trends for the development of remanufacturing trading platforms and propose six key applications aimed at filling the identified gaps. The consortium blockchain has the characteristics of security and transparency, high credibility, traceability and unfalsifiability, low cost, and strong scalability, which can provide effective support for the six key applications. Then, we construct the technical framework and the model of a consortium blockchain-supported remanufacturing trading platform. Further, we analyze the coupling mechanism between consortium blockchain and remanufacturing trading platform to explain how the remanufacturing trading platform supported by consortium blockchain achieves development characteristics. This study provides important guidance for the development, construction, and operation management of remanufacturing trading platforms.

The mathematical modelling of reverse logistics inventory systems ignores that returned items may arrive out of sequence, i.e. with different number of remanufacturing times. Moreover, such modelling assumes that the retuned items may retain the same quality upon recovery regardless of how many times they have been previously remanufactured. This paper develops a new mathematical expression of the percentage of retuned items that can be remanufactured a finite number of times. The proposed expression is modelled as a function of the expected number of times an item can be remanufactured on its life cycle and the number of times an item can be technologically (or optimally) remanufactured based on its quality upon recovery. The model developed in this paper considers joint production and remanufacturing options. The return rate is a varying demand dependent rate, which is a decision variable with demand, product deterioration, manufacturing and remanufacturing rates being arbitrary functions of time. The model considers the initial inventory of returned items in the mathematical formulation, which enables decision makers to adjust all functions and input parameters for subsequent cycles. Illustrative examples indicate that dependent purchasing price of recovery items and the incorporation of remanufacturing investment cost significantly impact on the optimal remanufacturing policy.

Remanufacturing is a way for product recovery initiative and maintaining sufficient production flow to satisfy customer demand through circular economy. Recently, manufacturers have been progressively incorporating remanufacturing processes, making their supply chain vulnerable to disruptions. Among the disruptions that usually occur is the shortage in spare parts supply, which causes unexpected delay in production and possible loss of sales. In the face of potential disruption, it is essential for remanufacturing facilities to manage their supply chains in an optimum manner as to decrease the adverse impact of disruptions to their business. In this study, a two-stage production-inventory system is analysed by developing a cost-minimisation model focusing on the recovery schedule after a disruption occurrence in sourcing spare parts for a remanufacturer’s production cycle. The developed model was solved using the branch and bound algorithm. Through numerical experiments, the results indicate that the optimal recovery schedule and the number of recovery cycles are significantly dependant on disruption time, lost sales and backorder costs. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis shows that the lost sales option seems to be more effective than the backorder option in optimising the system’s overall cost. The proposed model could assist managers in deciding the optimal production strategy while providing interesting managerial insights into vital spare parts recovery issues when disruption strikes.

We present a new model formulation for a class of capacitated lot-sizing problem considering setup costs, product returns, and remanufacturing (CLSP-RM). We investigate a broad class of instances that fall into two groups, in the first group we can reformulate the problem with a relaxation and test whether the original problem is solvable. The relaxation gives near optimal solutions and the solution of this class does not give any difficulty to known solvers such as Cplex, Gurobi or Xpress. The second group of instances are of category NP and will be solved with a simple period-by-period simulation

Remanufacturing is a viable option to extend the useful life of an end-of-use product or its parts, ensuring sustainable competitive advantages under the current global economic climate. Challenges typical to remanufacturing still persist, despite its many benefits. According to the European Remanufacturing Network a key challenge is lack of accurate, timely and consistent product knowledge as highlighted in a 2015 survey of 188 European remanufacturers. With more data being produced by electric and hybrid vehicles, this adds to the information complexity challenge already experienced in remanufacturing. Therefore, it is difficult to implement real-time and accurate remanufacturing for the shop floor; there are no papers that focus on this within an electric and hybrid vehicle environment. To address this problem this paper attempts to (1) identify the required parameters/ variables needed for fuel cell remanufacturing by means of interviews (2) rank the variables by Pareto analysis (3) develop a casual loop diagram for the identified parameters/ variables to visualise its impact on remanufacturing (4) model a simple stock and flow diagram to simulate and understand data and information-driven schemes in remanufacturing.

The rapid advancement of technology has led to increased electronic consumption and a corresponding rise in e-waste generation. To address this issue, this study develops a low-carbon e-commerce closed-loop supply chain (LCE-CLSC) system with remanufacturer, platform, and the government as key stakeholders. An evolutionary game approach is employed to investigate the system's dynamics, analyzing the impact of stakeholder strategies on system equilibrium. Numerical simulations reveal important findings: Firstly, government initiatives promoting recycling, carbon taxes on traditional products, can incentivize remanufacturers to produce low-carbon items and encourage platform investment in recycling services. Secondly, higher sales revenues motivate remanufacturers to produce low-carbon products. Thirdly, consumer sensitivity to recycling services strengthens waste recovery when platforms increase investments in these services, leading to remanufacturers choosing low-carbon production. Lastly, government subsidies may become ineffective if the cost of remanufacturers' carbon reduction and platforms' recycling services exceeds their affordability. These findings offer insights for the sustainable development of obsolete electronic product recycling systems.