Transport Optimization of the Reverse Logistics System During Territories Sustainable Development

Abstract

The observed growth in the consumption level and the limited resources reserves exhaustion contradicts to the principles of sustainable development. The latter requires re-use of end-of-life products as part of the transition to a circular economy. This implies to develop methods and tools for building closed-loop chains in logistics systems and improving the movement of reverse flows. A simulation model was developed for both the delivery of goods to sale points and removal from them of accumulated products that were in use and handed over by consumers for further processing. As a result of a computer experiment the model allows to make well-founded decisions on the selection of vehicle fleet. Thus, we solve the third stage problem of organizing performance of a closed-loop supply chain -transport logistics' optimization. Products transportation and storage costs are considered as the target functionality. Variable parameters are vehicles' number in the fleet, lots size and driving intervals. Additional restrictions are minimum allowable level of vehicle loading and minimum required level of goods assortment in the store. The performed approbation on real data has shown the effectiveness of the proposed approach.