Calls for papers…

1. There is a call for papers for a special issue of Operational Research: An International Journal on Optimization Models in Environment and Sustainable Development. Here is an excerpt:

The objective of this special issue of ORIJ is to present recent advances on the ways in which patterns of development can be measured and modelled in the search for sustainability, and also to provide a framework to help decision-makers choose the most appropriate model, on issues like (but not limited to):
- Optimization Models in Environment and Sustainable Development
- Decision Support Systems in Environment and Sustainable Development
- Analysis of the relation between Economic Growth and Environmental Quality
- Optimization Models for Environmental Systems
- Waste Management Planning and Optimization
- Operational Research Applications in Wildlife Management and Ecology
- Optimization Models in Forest and Agricultural Sector
- Evaluation of currently used Optimization Models
- OR Case Studies in the field of Environmental Management
We are particularly interested in new optimization models or improvements in modelling techniques, regarding the environment or sustainable development.

Submission deadline is 31 Oct 2008.

2. The Journal of the Operational Research Society has a call for papers out on an issue about Transportation, Logistics and the Environment. It reads, in part:

There is growing interest in the field of “green” logistics and transportation, which is a domain focusing on environmentally friendly and efficient ways of transportation, both on the passenger front and for freight operations. The special issue aims to put together studies concerning any aspect of logistics and transportation, but with an explicit consideration of environmental factors (such as reduction of energy consumption, air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions). We are seeking novel, high quality papers that address environmental issues in contexts including, but not limited to,
. city logistics,
. intelligent transportation systems,
. intermodal transportation,
. network design and planning,
. passenger transportation,
. reverse logistics,
. road, rail, air and maritime freight operations,
. supply chain management,
. terminal operations management and planning,
. vehicle routing and scheduling,
Using operational research based modelling approaches (e.g., mathematical modelling, simulation) and solution methodologies (e.g., exact and heuristic solution algorithms). The special issue aims to stimulate interest in green transportation and logistics from the operational research community, capture the state-of-the-art in the domain, and identify potential research directions that will keep the field active in the long run.

Deadline is 30 Sep 2008. See also this post including the comments for related information.

3. The upcoming EJOR issue on Closed-Loop Supply Chains mentioned in an earlier post is actually now a feature cluster of the Dec 2008 issue of that journal. Navigate to this page and scroll to the bottom. It contains an introduction and three papers, one of which (Strategic response to EEE returns: Product eco-design or new recovery processes? by R. Zuidwijk and H. Krikke ) was summarized in a previous post here.

Green Supply Chains

There’s a good post on Michael Trick’s OR blog discussing an extension to ILOG’s supply chain software for measuring the carbon footprint of a supply chain. Follow the links therein, one of which could lead you to the “Green Logistics Webcast Series”, which sounds interesting.

On the subject of green supply chains, here are some additional references:

The Economics of Remanufacturing Under Limited Component Durability and Finite Product Life Cycles
R Geyer, LN Van Wassenhove, A Atasu
in Management Science, January 2007

From Closed-Loop to Sustainable Supply Chains: The WEEE case
J Quariguasi Frota Neto, G Walther, JM Bloemhof
in Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM) Report Series Research in Management

A Model for Assessing the Greenness Effort in a Product Supply Chain
S H’Mida, SY Lakhal
in International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, Vol. 7, No. 1, 2007

Methodology for Reverse Supply Chain Design in Consumer Electronics Industry
S Rajagopalan
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2006

Upcoming EJOR Issue on Closed-Loop Supply Chains

EJOR (European Journal of Operational Research) has an upcoming feature issue on closed loop supply chains. The abstract of the introduction to the issue is available to Science Direct subscribers. It mentions three papers in the issue. The first by Zuidwijk and Krikke has a cradle-to-cradle strategy feel about how much to invest in product design and how much to invest in the processes to handle returned products. This is modeled using an integer linear program and applied to the production of computer monitors. Update: added a summary of the Zuidwijk and Krikke paper to the references section.

Update: It’s out. Navigate to this page and scroll to the bottom.

Local E-cycling

Connecticut (USA) recently enacted a law aimed at reducing electronics waste. It places the burden of “e-cycling” on manufacturers who will have to register with the state Department of Enviromental Protection (DEP), paying an annual fee used by the DEP to administer the program. No OR content here, but see the posts pertaining to clsc, and the bit about Cisco in the INFORMS roundtable post.

Link to the bill, worth a closer look.

A little more depth on the business angle from this informative Hartford Business Journal article. In the past, state plans like this have either charged the manufacturer with the costs of recycling the electronics they produce, or charged the consumer by adding a fee to the retail cost of the item. The latter is alarming to retailers. I’m wondering if retailers are more vocal in a Statehouse than manufacturers, since they are more local.

New old find: CLSC Issue of Interfaces

The November-December 2003 issue of the journal Interfaces had the following special section:
Closed-Loop Supply Chains: Practice and Potential

Contains these relevant articles:

1. Closed-Loop Supply Chains: Practice and Potential
V. Daniel R. Guide Jr.; Luk N. Van Wassenhove.

2. The Challenge of Closed-Loop Supply Chains
V. Daniel R. Guide Jr. ; Terry P. Harrison; Luk N. Van Wassenhove.

3. Strategic Management of Spare Parts in Closed-Loop Supply Chains-A System Dynamics Approach
Thomas Spengler; Marcus Schröter.

4. McGriff Treading Company Implements Service Contracts with Shared Savings
Prashant Yadav; David M. Miller; Charles P. Schmidt; Randy Drake.

5. Reconfiguring a Remanufacturing Line at Visteon, Mexico
Sunder Kekre; Uday S. Rao; Jayashankar M. Swaminathan; Jun Zhang.

6. Integrating Closed-Loop Supply Chains and Spare-Parts Management at IBM
Moritz Fleischmann; Jo A. E. E. van Nunen; Ben Gräve.

7. Closed-Loop Supply Chains for Spent Batteries
Frank Schultmann; Bernd Engels; Otto Rentz. Summary here.

The focus, at least as laid out in the “Challenge” paper is on developing new models that address the unique issues posed by closed-loop supply chains. Sustainability could be a beneficial side effect, that paper states later. This was interesting too:

Considerable research has concerned “green supply chains” or “environmentally responsible manufacturing.” However, no rational company will invest in environmental measures to save the earth. That’s not what companies are for, and legislation is not going to change that, except perhaps to make things worse if we are not careful… Companies need a viable business model that marries good business sense with environmental sustainability and allows companies to realize value out of returned products.

There has been some debate over these issues (e.g. do companies have a responsibility to their “stakeholders”?). See the book The Market for Virtue for example.

In any case, the issue is worth following up on, to be filed under References.

INFORMS Sustainability Roundtable

INFORMS held a “Roundtable” at the Fall 2006 annual meeting that included discussions about sustainability. It’s described in this article in the June 2007 issue of OR/MS Today. Participants included Cisco, P&G, Ford, and HP.

Detailed abstracts and participant bios are available here (word doc).

One item that was mentioned frequently was the closed-loop supply chain (CLSC). A couple of examples were:
- Jo van Nunen (Rotterdam School of Management) “identified a number of examples in which European companies are using O.R. models to optimize remanufacturing and recycling supply chain segments to increase profits.”
- Cisco Systems developed an allocation model to help with life-cycle management and re-use of products. “During FY2006, Cisco recovered and processed 4,516 tons of equipment, with only 0.9 percent sent to landfill.”

(Note: Other posts here mention that CLSC’s had a special issue of Interfaces and a session at EURO 2007.)

A few other interesting items included:

- Dwight Collins (Colbridge & Company LLC) described the new field of Industrial Ecology, new Life cycle assessment tools, “how O.R. achievements over the past decade in green product and process development, lean and green OM, and remanufacturing and closed-loop supply chains fit under the broader sustainability umbrella”, and how “making sustainability a priority tends to have unanticipated benefits.”

- Proctor & Gamble used OR techniques to “determine the optimal cost structure for distribution of P&G’s Pur water filtration sachets in Africa”.

- P&G’s participant, David Dittmann suggested thinking of sustainability as a variable rather than as a constraint. Cisco’s example of re-use above brings this home.

- Scott Ellis of Hewlett Packard talked about HP examples of opportunities for OR to help address sustainability challenges, along with guidelines for applying OR to sustainability (these are listed in the OR/MS article).

In all, from the OR/MS Today article it sounds as if many good topics and examples from the intersection of OR and Sustainability came up. It would be great to hear about it in more detail than the space the OR/MS today article could provide. For instance what were the examples van Nunen (Rotterdam), Collins (Colbridge), and Ellis (HP) discussed?

Interestingly, this roundtable was held in the Fall of 2006, but coverage of it did not appear until June 2007 issue of ORMS today. The piece was not mentioned on the cover, in the contents it was only listed as Roundtable with no mention of sustainability, and it was near the end of the magazine. It is a trendy topic, and many magazines have been all over it (e.g. Consumer’s Reports, Vogue). So is INFORMS trying to avoid getting caught up in the hype, is something else at work, or is it just not too central on the radar screen?