COORDINATING DESIGN DECISIONS FOR PRODUCT, SUPPLY CHAIN AND REVERSE SUPPLY CHAIN

New environmental regulations have extended the producer's responsibility for a product to the post-consumer stage. Producers are often responsible for the collection and recovery of their end-of-life (EOL) products. In fact, the producer's conventional supply chain has been extended to integrate reverse logistics activities dealing with EOL products. The economic and environmental viability of recovering EOL products is a daunting challenge for producers. Our literature review shows a scarcity of knowledge about how to design a viable reverse supply chain for recovering EOL products while considering product and supply chain dimensions. This paper presents a methodology for designing a reverse supply chain for EOL products based on coordination among product design, forward supply chain design and reverse supply chain design decisions. When deciding whether to invest in a structured reverse supply chain design and implementation, decision-makers need to fully understand the interactions among these three dimensions.