Sustainable development in a modern supply chain network,

Every product generated, transported, used and discarded within a Supply Chain (SC) generates costs and creates an impact on the environment. The increasing of forward flows as effect of market globalization and reverse flows due to legislation, warranty, recycling and disposal activities impose to investigate the capacity of a modern SC to be economically and environmentally sustainable. Sustainability is the ability of a system to carry on. This paper investigates the SC design sustainability considering a multi echelon, multi product, multi production/distribution system and multi transportation way. The study first introduces an innovative closed loop SC (CLSC) design methodology based on a linear programming model, where both economical and environmental sustainability is guarantee by closed loop shipments, re-use of components, decreasing the need of raw materials and reducing disposal material, thanks to a complete product end-of-life return to manufacturers. At conclusion, a real application is presented to test the model. Second, the authors generalize the problem in a parametrical study, comparing the classical forward SC with the introduced CLSC structure, in function of different a-dimensional variables related to economical and environmental sustainability, and in function of different companies prospective with respect to the product end-of-life disposal. The relative impact of the different variables in the SC structure and the applicability of the proposed model, with respect to the classical SC structure in terms of total costs, SC structure and company’s social responsibility, are investigated thoroughly and the results are reported at the conclusion of the paper.