Closed-Loop Supply Chains ─ New Developments to Improve the Sustainability of Business Practices

Closed-loop supply chain activities such as remanufacturing, recycling, dismantling for spare parts, and reverse logistics have helped many companies tap into new revenue streams by finding secondary markets for their products, all while reducing their overall carbon footprint. A comprehensive yet concise presentation of closed-loop supply chain processes, Closed-Loop Supply Chains: New Developments to Improve the Sustainability of Business Practices investigates the state of the art in this rapidly growing and environmentally significant field.

Written by academic experts, in language that is accessible to practitioners, this reader-friendly reference examines recent research and case studies of companies running profitable reuse/remanufacture/recycling operations in various industries. It illustrates profitable practices in returned and recovered products, and clearly explains how to: design a reverse logistics network, conduct production planning, implement effective marketing strategies for recovered products, and apply closed-loop supply chain strategies in other industries besides manufacturing.

From product development to materials to assembly and profitability, this authoritative resource illustrates the impact of these processes across all aspects of the supply chain. It provides a business perspective of how to properly implement these processes in your company to achieve profitable and sustainable operations in a more environmentally friendly manner. It also:

• Investigates strategic decisions companies face in regard to the secondary market for their products, including opportunity costs
• Examines tactical issues firms will face once the decision to remanufacture has been made, including how to market remanufactured products
• Summarizes the key characteristics and practices in a variety of industries where remanufacturing has been successful
• Explains how to conceptualize and manage changes due to switching to a closed-loop supply chain
• Demonstrates how to handle changing legislation

Designed for ease of reference, each chapter covers a specific topic—in a completely self-contained manner—allowing readers to quickly and easily reference the chapters of particular relevance to their industry and situation.

Mark Ferguson is a professor of Management Science and Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Fellow at the Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina. He received his PhD in Business Administration, with a concentration in Operations Management from Duke University in 2001. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Virginia Tech and an MS in Industrial Engineering from Georgia Tech. Dr. Ferguson's research interests involve many areas of supply chain management and sustainability including production planning policies for remanufacturing, product line extensions involving remanufactured products, the use of leasing and trade-in policies to recover end-of-use products, and business strategies for responding to secondary markets.

Dr. Ferguson serves as the faculty director for Technology and Management Program (www.mgt.gatech.edu/tm) and the coordinator for the focused research area on dynamic pricing and revenue management (http://mgt.gatech.edu/fac_research/centers_initiatives/pricing/index.html). Two of his papers have won best paper awards from the Production and Operations Management Society and several of his research projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation. Prior to joining Georgia Tech, he had five years of experience as a manufacturing engineer and supply chain manager with IBM.

Gilvan "Gil" Souza is an Associate Professor of Operations Management at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Prior to coming to Kelley, Gil was a tenured associate professor at the University of Maryland. He received a Ph.D. in operations management from UNC, an MBA from Clemson University, and a BS in aeronautical engineering from ITA (Brazil). Prior to entering academic, Gil had about five years of experience in product development and product planning at Volkswagen of Brazil. His research focuses in supply chain management, remanufacturing, and sustainable operations. It has been published in all the top journals in the field, and he won the Wickham Skinner Early–Career Research Accomplishments award from POMS in 2004. Gil has taught courses in operations and supply chain management, primarily in MBA and EMBA programs, and he teaches the sustainable operations MBA elective at Kelley.