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TopBackground
Because sustainability is one of the most important strategies in today’s competitive business environment, RL as a process increasing sustainability has been recognized by organizations incrementally. This study helps to researchers who want to study on the specific issue of this field, and managers who want to improve their business processes, by two ways:
- 1.
Introducing and comparing past and current characteristics and trends of RLND studies, and
- 2.
Providing which parameters and variables should be taken into consideration when modeling their business processes in RL network with respect to expected requirements.
This study differs from literature reviews conducted in the past in that it focuses on RLND studies from a comprehensible perspective. Literature review methodology is chosen because as Hart and Bond (1998) mention, “Without literature review, you will not acquire an understanding of topic, of what has already been done on it, how it has been researched, and what the key issues are.”
Key Terms in this Chapter
Implementation Environment: Part of modeling methodology that consists of characteristics pertaining to business area where case studies or numerical examples conducted.
Model and Network Structure: Part of modeling methodology that includes characteristics related to mathematical models, objectives and structure of parameters, network, number of product type and capacity limits.
Future Trends of RLND: Issues of RLND expected to be more attractive in the future.
Sustainability: Ability of operating or living without consuming new resources within current system.
Reverse Logistics (RL): To plan and control the returns of end of life or non usable products/materials.
Reverse Logistics Network Design (RLND): To determine requirements of reverse logistics network. It mostly includes decision of facility location selection and allocation quantities between actors.