Wei Qu

MSc in International Transport - Cardiff University


Room: B44 SB
Tel: +44 (0) 115 8467752
Email: lixwq1@nottingham.ac.uk

Current Status: Registered
Year of Registration: 2010
Expected Completion Date: /09/2013

Primary Funding Source:
Business School Scholarship

Research Topic:
Optimising Value Recovery From Product Returns In Closed-Loop Supply Chains (CLSC)

Research Details:
CLSC is gaining increasing attention from both the academic and business domain due to the growing environmental concerns (e.g. the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment WEEE Directive) and economic reasons (Gupta and Veerakamolmal, 2000). Most of the current CLSC research focuses on individual activities and operational issues such as inventory control, network design, but fail to analyse the CLSC as an integrated system, however, the interesting problems for business today are not simply tactical or operational in nature (Guide et al 2003), they tend to be strategic which can help to tackle the fundamental business problem of CLSC in a generic way. There is a need to develop a modelling framework which can represent the closed-loop supply chain as an integrated system and considering the important constraints and uncertainties associated with the system. The model needs to be more generic and flexible which can be directly applicable as a decision tool for value recovery. In addition to the modelling, more in-depth analysis are worth to be taken with regards to the interrelationship among different constraints and uncertainties in the CLSC, their individual and joint impact on cost structure of the CLSC system. In order to achieve the objective, a dynamic life cycle model will be used to investigate the change of conditions over time, different recovery options analysed under different demand profiles and other constraints to find out in what circumstances the optimal value recovery decision can be made. Analytical model and linear programming will be applied to identify the relationships among various constraints so as to provide logic base for simulation modelling.

Research Supervisor/s: Luc Muyldermans and Bart MacCarthy

Division: Operations Management and Information Systems