Reverse Logistics in Circular Economy

The project will provide clear strategies to enable effective supply chain of servitised products by developing the reverse logistics process based on the circular economy principles.

DatesMarch 2017 - February 2020
SponsorEuropean Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Innovative Training Networks (ITN)
Funded€3,995,643 total (ca €250,000 on this project)
PartnersLeiden University, Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet, Delft University of Technology, Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble, Aston University, Linköping University

Principal Investigator: Prof Michael Bourlakis
Co-Investigator: Dr Emel Aktas
Researcher: Carl Kuehl

The project focuses on and analyse the roles of reverse logistics as a critical enabler of an effective and efficient supply chain for Product Service Systems (PSS). PSS is a business model of a manufacturer that offers an integrated product and services. The work will provide clear strategies for optimising the reverse logistics processes and functions, by embedding the principles of circular economy, thus allowing companies to grow their sustainable PSS businesses. Desk-based research will be carried out to identify the circular economy principles from the body of literature. System development and experimentation will be adopted to formulate the reverse logistics design method and to provide a number of use cases.

Related Centre

Logistics, Procurement and Supply Chain Management

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