GOALI: Modeling and Optimization of a Responsive Reverse Logistics Channel for Electronic Products

这一学术与行业联系机会奖为一项合作研究提供资金，该研究旨在建模和优化报废电子产品的逆向物流渠道，以提高其对渠道两端的市场需求的响应能力。本研究的目的主要有三个方面：一是建立一个长期的产学研合作团队，进行生命周期管理的研究；二是将市场需求和客户退货服务需求整合到物流和逆向生产调度中，提高响应能力；三是研究整个逆向物流渠道参与者之间的整合与协调问题，从系统层面进行绩效优化。本次产学研合作研究的初步目标是：1)利用随机规模的批量到达优先排队系统对动态市场需求和随机服务需求的物流渠道进行建模；2)对产品退货过程和随机逆向库存进行建模，以优化逆向库存策略。据估计，2004年美国的逆向物流市场规模为55亿美元。这方面的研究成果将为行业提供优化的决策支持，提高业务运营的效率，从而为行业带来显著的好处。虽然研究结果将通过将市场需求整合到决策过程和基于谈判的协调来弥合逆向制造业现有知识和新需求之间的差距，但开发的方法也可以应用于其他需要响应和协调的场景。该项目的路线图还将确保最大限度地发挥对教育和社会的潜在好处。

This Grant Opportunity for Academic Liaison with Industry award provides funding for a collaborative research that is targeted to modeling and optimizing the reverse logistics channel of end-of-life electronic products to improve its responsiveness to the market demands from both ends of the channel. The objectives of this research are three fold: i) establish a long term university-industry collaboration team in research of end-of-life management, ii) integrate market demand and customer return service requirement into logistics and reverse production scheduling to improve the responsiveness, and iii) investigate the integration and coordination issues in the whole reverse logistics channel among participants to optimize the performance at the system level. The following methodologies will be developed in this university-industry collaborative research to achieve the initial objectives: 1) Use random-sized batch arrival priority queuing system to model the logistics channel in regard to dynamic market demands and stochastic service requirements; and 2) Model the product return process and stochastic reverse inventory to optimize the reverse inventory policy. The market of the reverse logistics is estimated at 55,000 millions in US in 2004. The results of this research in this regard will produce marked benefit to the industry through providing optimized decisions support with improved efficiency of business operations. While the findings of the research will bridge the gap between the current knowledge and the new requirements of the reverse manufacturing industry through integration of market demand into decision process and negotiation based coordination, the methodology developed can also be applied to other scenarios where responsiveness and coordination is required. The roadmap in this project will also guarantee the maximization of the potential benefit to education and the society.