A decision support system for end-of-life products

Abstract

In recent years public awareness of environmental issues has increased dramatically. This awareness has resulted in increased governmental control of related matters, for example, of waste and of industrial emissions. Consumer and legislative pressures are forcing manufacturers to broaden the manufacturing system to include product take back and recovery. A take-back system necessitates good logistics and information systems. This thesis proposes a decision support system that assists in decision-making in relation to end-of-life (EOL) products. There are several options at the end-of-life of a product: reuse/part reclamation, remanufacturing, recycling, incineration (with or without energy recovery) or discard to landfill. Each option has an economic and an environmental impact. The impacts are described by indicators that have specific values for each option. Decision-makers - who may be recycling companies, original equipment manufacturers or local authorities - need to determine which option, or combination of options, is best in a given situation. A mathematical model to assist in this decision is proposed. The model is based on vectors that contain indicators’ values for each EOL option. A generic EOL scenario, which may comprise a combination of EOL options is expressed as a linear combination of options. This modelling approach permits the use of linear algebra tools in expressing and solving problems related to EOL scenario of products such as: calculate the best scenario structure given the targets set by the EU WEEE Directive and the EOL options vectors; solve ‘What I f situations; when used in combination with a multi-criteria analysis method (such as AHP), identify the best EOL option from an environmental and economic point of view. Based on the mathematical model and the Business Process Reengineering methodology, the decision support system for end-of-life products is developed.