Content area
Full Text
DEKKER, ROMMERT, MORITZ FLEISCHMANN, KARL INDERFURTH, LUK N. VAN WASSENHOVE, EDS. 2004. Reverse Logistics: Quantitative Models for Closed-Loop Supply Chains. Springer-Verlag, New York. 436 pp. $109.00.
Reverse logistics refers to the flow of materials from end users back into a supply chain. Modeling forward supply chains, in which the flow of materials is from raw materials to finished products, has become a central theme in the OR/MS community. However, exploration of reverse logistics is still in its infancy. In some cases, reverse logistics can be treated as an independent channel for material flows, and by some measures, it can be considered an extension of research into traditional supply chain management. When the decoupling of reverse and forward logistics is not appropriate, however, the two must be considered simultaneously as a closed-loop supply chain.
How should materials be recovered? Who should recover them? Where should they be processed? How should they be designed to optimize recovery and processing? These are just some of the important questions Dekker, Fleischmann, Inderfurth, and Van Wassenhove explore in Reverse Logistics: Quantitative Models for Closed-Loop Supply Chains. The number of manufactured items that are recovered and recycled or reused is growing substantially and presenting new challenges for supply-chain managers. In some cases, the growth is being driven by new legislation designed to encourage green manufacturing; in others, it is a natural result of the desire to reduce costs within the supply chain itself. Whatever the reason, reverse logistics presents manufacturing industries with many new and interesting challenges.
Dekker et al. have tied together a series of recent...