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

这一学术与行业联络奖为一项合作研究提供了资金，该研究旨在对报废电子产品的逆向物流渠道进行建模和优化，以提高其对渠道两端市场需求的响应能力。本研究的目标有三个：1)建立一个长期的产学研合作团队，研究报废管理；2)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，以提高响应能力；3)研究整个逆向物流渠道参与者之间的整合和协调问题，以优化系统层面的绩效。为达到初步目标，本校企合作研究将发展以下方法：1)利用随机大小的批量到达优先排队系统，在动态市场需求和随机服务需求的情况下，对物流渠道进行建模；2)建立产品退货过程和随机逆向库存模型，优化逆向库存策略。据估计，2004年美国逆向物流市场规模为550亿美元。这方面的研究成果将通过提供优化的决策支持，提高业务运营效率，为行业带来显著的效益。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中，弥合当前知识与逆向制造业新要求之间的差距，但所开发的方法也可以应用于需要响应和协调的其他场景。这个项目的路线图也将保证对教育和社会的潜在利益最大化。

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.