REFERENCE CONFIGURATIONS TO SUPPORT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PRODUCT RECOVERY SUPPLY CHAIN

摘要

Increased public awareness towards the global environmental problems together with government regulations has forced current manufacturing companies to be more conscious of the effect of their activities on the natural environment. One of the many efforts to combat these environmental problems is to recover products at the end of their life in order to conserve natural resources, minimise energy consumption and reduce waste disposal problems. Recently an increasing number of manufacturing enterprises aim or are forced by legislation to adapt product recovery into their existing business practices. This has highlighted a need for a systematic approach for enhancement of information, business and production management systems to deal with additional activities and processes related to the recovery of products. The research reported in this paper aims to provide a clear understanding of such product recovery activities by extending the traditional manufacturing supply chain through the definition of a product recovery implementation methodology an its application via two reference Configurations.