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This paper deals with a recent approach that tackles the product and the supply chain design issues at the same time. On one hand, supply chain constraints must be integrated into product design phase. On the other hand, product specificities are considered while determining supply chain structure. Moreover, reverse activities are integrated to recapture value of used products and also for ecological purpose.
We study the case of an existing product's redesign. The design change affects either the components or the process of the product or both of them at once. Therefore, we prioritize the optimization of supplying, production and recycling costs. For the product redesign, bill of materials is considered. For the supply chain configuration, suppliers' selection, assembling process choice, recycling centers' location are considered as well as sub-contractors selection.
At product design phase, the design team offers several design alternatives. The aim of this work is to determine simultaneously the optimal redesign alternative accompanied with its optimal supply chain configuration integrating recycling activity. For this purpose, a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation is proposed. Thus, the product redesign and the supply chain configuration chosen should optimize supply, transportation, storage and recycling of components on one hand and production, outsourcing, technologies implementation and product's recycling on the other hand. Since the product could be returned during its entire life cycle, time periods in the MILP formulation are considered to be product life cycle phases. This consideration gave a dynamic aspect to our model.
Keywords—Supply chain design; Product redesign; Supply chain optimization; reverse logistic; Mixed integer linear programming.
