A fuzzy-based decision support framework for product recovery process selection in reverse logistics

Owing to the increasing attention to sustainability and green manufacturing as well as the legislations and competition, product recovery management has become an important issue to extend the product's life. It is an environmentally, economically and socially sound way to achieve many of the goals of sustainable development. In this paper, a fuzzy-based multi-criteria decision making framework has been proposed for the evaluation of alternate product recovery processes. The evaluation has been done based on the criteria of operating cost, value added recovery, environmental impact, market demand, technical/operational feasibility, and corporate social responsibility. The five alternative product recovery processes identified in the study are repair, refurbishing, remanufacturing, cannibalising, and recycling. The novelty of the framework is that it takes care of the inherent uncertainties in reverse logistics environment; and managers can provide different weights to different criteria depending upon the company strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the business environment.