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Weight reduction technology and supply chain network design under carbon emission restriction

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Abstract

As policies and regulations related to environmental protection and resource constraints are becoming increasingly tougher, corporations may face the difficulty of determining the optimal trade-offs between economic performance and environmental concerns when selecting product technology and designing supply chain networks. This paper considers weight reduction technology selection and network design problem in a real-world corporation in China which produces, sells and recycles polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles used for soft drinks. The problem is addressed while taking consideration of future regulations of carbon emissions restrictions. First, a deterministic mixed-integer linear programming model is developed to analyze the influence of economic cost and carbon emissions for different selections in terms of the weight of PET bottle, raw material purchasing, vehicle routing, facility location, manufacturing and recycling plans, etc. Then, the robust counterpart of the proposed mixed-integer linear programming model is used to deal with the uncertainty in supply chain network resulting from the weight reduction. Finally, results show that though weight reduction is both cost-effective and environmentally beneficial, the increased cost due to the switching of the filling procedure from hot-filling to aseptic cold-filling and the incumbent uncertainties have impacts on the location of the Pareto frontier. Besides, we observe that the feasible range between economic cost and carbon emission shrinks with weightreduction; and the threshold of restricted volume of carbon emission decreases with the increase of uncertainty in the supply chain network.

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Abbreviations

t :

The index of operational periods \(t=1,\ldots , T\)

i :

The index of potential new PET chips suppliers \(i =1,\ldots ,I\)

j :

The index of potential manufacturing centers \(j=1,\ldots , J\)

k :

The index of potential distribution center locations \(k=1,\ldots ,K\)

m :

The index of potential recycling center locations \(m=1,\ldots ,M\)

n :

The index of markets \(n =1,\ldots , N\)

\({PN}_{ijt}\) :

The quantity of new PET chips in manufacturing center j provided by supplier i in period t

\({MD}_{jkt}\) :

The quantity of PET bottles shipped from manufacturing center j to distribution center k in period t

\({DX}_{knt}\) :

The quantity of PET bottles shipped from distribution center k to market n in period t

\({RX}_{mnt}\) :

The quantity of returned PET bottles recycled from market n to recycling center m in period t

\({MR}_{jmt}\) :

The quantity of recovered PET chip from recycling center m to manufacturing center j in period t

\(S_{i}\) :

\(=\left\{ {\begin{array}{ll} {1} &{} \hbox {If a new PET chips supplier } i \hbox { is opened,}\\ {0} &{} \hbox { Otherwise,}\end{array}} \right. \)

\({MC}_{j}\) :

\(=\left\{ {\begin{array}{ll} {1} &{} \hbox { If a manufacturing center }j\hbox { is opened, }\\ 0 &{} \hbox { Otherwise,}\\ \end{array}} \right. \)

\({DC}_{k}\) :

\(=\left\{ {\begin{array}{ll} {1} &{} \hbox { If a distribution center }k \hbox { is opened, }\\ {0} &{} \hbox {Otherwise,}\\ \end{array}} \right. \)

\({RC}_{m}\) :

\(=\left\{ {\begin{array}{ll} 1 &{} \hbox {If a recycling center }m\hbox { is opened, }\\ 0 &{} \hbox {Otherwise,}\\ \end{array} }\right. \)

\(\theta _{t}\) :

Average recovery rate in period t

\(\sigma _{mt}\) :

Discard rate of unusable recycling PET chips at recycling center m in period t

\(\gamma \) :

Conversion coefficient from chips to a bottle

\(\omega \) :

Ratio of recovered chips contained in a bottle

\(\mathrm {\Delta }\) :

Net weight of water contained in a bottle

\(d_{nt}\) :

Demand of market n in period t

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Acknowledgements

This work described in this paper was partially supported by National Scientific Foundation of China (Project No. 71671152 Grant No. 61750110536),Guangdong Natural Science Foundation fund (2015A030313782), SUSTech Startup fund (Y01236215), National Scientific Foundation of Fujian Province (Project No. 2015J01288), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (NCET-12-0321) andthe Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 20720151004).

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Correspondence to Zongwei Luo.

Appendices

Appendix: Related parameters

Other parameters

\(\bar{msc}_{it}\)

Maximal supply capacity of new PET chips from supplier i in period t

\(\bar{mmc}_{jt}\)

Maximal production capacity of PET bottles at manufacturing center j in period t

\(\bar{mdc}_{kt}\)

Maximal distribution capacity of PET bottles at distribution center k in period t

\(\bar{mrc}_{mt}\)

Maximal processing capacity of returned PET bottles at recycling center k in period t

\({fs}_{i}\)

Fixed cost of selecting supplier i to establish a long-term business

\({fm}_{j}\)

Fixed cost of opening manufacturing center j

\({fd}_{k}\)

Fixed cost of opening distribution center k

\({fr}_{m}\)

Fixed cost of opening recycling center m

\({ps}_{ijt}\)

Unit purchase price of new PET chips from supplier i to manufacturing center j in period t

\({pp}_{kt}\)

Unit processing cost in distribution center k

\({pr}_{mnt}\)

Unit repurchase price of returned PET bottles from market n torecycling center m in period t

\({pt}_{t}\)

Unit cost of delivering cargoes (chips or bottles) per unit weight per unit distance in period t

\({pd}_{mt}\)

Unit cost of discarding unusable recycling PET chips at recycling center m in period t

\({prr}_{mt}\)

Unit cost of regenerating recovery PET chips at recycling center m in period t

\({lsm}_{ij}\)

Shortest shipping distances from supplier i to manufacturing center j

\({lmd}_{jk}\)

Shortest shipping distances from manufacturing center j to distribution center k

\({ldx}_{kn}\)

Shortest shipping distances from distribution center k to market n

\({lxr}_{nm}\)

Shortest shipping distances from market n torecycling center m

\({lrm}_{mj}\)

Shortest shipping distances from recycling center m to manufacturing center j

\({cn}_{ijt}\)

Unit carbon emission of purchasing new PET chips from supplier i to manufacturing center j in period t

\({crr}_{mt}\)

Unit carbon emission of regenerating recovery PET chips at recycling center m in period t

\({crd}_{mt}\)

Unit carbon emission of discarding unusable recycling PET chips at recycling center m in period t

\({ct}_{t}\)

Unit carbon emission of delivering cargoes (chips or bottles) per unit weight per unit distance in period t

Appendix: Related data

See Tables 23456 and  7.

Table 2 Data on purchasing process
Table 3 Data on distribution process
Table 4 Data on recycling process
Table 5 Demand of each market (Unit)
Table 6 Unit purchase price of returned product from market (Yuan/unit)
Table 7 Data about transportation

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Han, S., Jiang, Y., Zhao, L. et al. Weight reduction technology and supply chain network design under carbon emission restriction. Ann Oper Res 290, 567–590 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-017-2696-8

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