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Top2. State Of Art
The key aspect of our research is situated within the framework of the activities of a shipping company owner of empty containers, which aims to minimize the cost of returning empty containers that represent a return flow in the transport logistics, whose purpose is to maximize the gain obtained on containers full transported in a merchandise shipping operation.
In order to concentrate on everything that is connected to this work, the authors propose the state of the art as follows on the return logistics and repositioning of empty containers.
A discrete-time linear analytical model was proposed by Hu et al. (2002), it consists of four critical activities: collection, storage, treatment, and distribution. The objective function allows to solve a minimization problem of the total cost of reverse logistics concerning the returned hazardous waste. Another model was proposed by Min et al. (2006), who used genetic algorithms to study the problem of the management of returned products. Also, Zhou et al. (2010) proposed a design of a reverse logistics network with a consideration of the repair and recovery options simultaneously. For this reason, a mathematical model of linear programming was proposed, where the objective function of the model is to minimize the total cost of the management of returned products.
On another side, Srivastava (2008) provided a design of a reverse logistics network, and he offered a three-level design (products returned by clients, collection centers, factories). He considered that the client is the source of the returned products. The proposed objective function is to maximize the profit, which is equal to revenues minus the sum of resales cost of reverse logistics and the price of resolution.