Optimal reverse supply chain design: the case of empty agrochemical containers.

GLENDA NATALI YOSSEN; GABRIELA PATRICIA HENNING

Bahia Blanca

Conferencia; International Conference of Production Research, ICPR - Americas 2020; 2020

Universidad Nacional del Sur

The growing use of agrochemicals added to the harm that contaminated contain-ers cause to the environment and to the health of the population, make it neces-sary to establish a reverse supply chain for the recovery and correct treatment of empty containers. Current regulations establish that they must be triple-rinsed and sent to collection centers, where containers are consolidated and shipped to treat-ment/recycling plants. Containers can also be sent to these plants directly. Given this problem, this contribution proposes an MILP multi-period model to define the optimal configuration and operation of the reverse supply chain network of empty agrochemical containers along a given planning horizon. Provided a super-structure including farms and the location of the potential nodes (collection cen-ters and plastic treatment plants), the model determines which facilities to install and when, their corresponding sizes, as well as how they would operate along the planning horizon. In addition, the model establishes the material flows among the various nodes in each planning period (network topology). The proposed model has been verified by addressing a realistic case study, which has been solved un-der different scenarios, exhibiting good computational performance. The obtained results allow reaching satisfactory conclusions in relation to model scalability and sensitivity.