Cooperative Models In Closed-Loop Supply Chains For Electrical And Electronic Products Under Government Regulations

The rapid development in global economy and electronic manufacturing industries brings profound changes in the theory of supply chain management, as well as expands and deepens the research scope. With the increasing awareness of environmental protection, sustainable development is under urgent requirement so that governments must publish corresponding policies to address the environmental problems. Moreover, reverse supply chains have received more and more concern on the inner economic and environmental values, encouraging people to gradually focus on Closed-Loop Supply Chain (CLSC).The of CLSC is a complex and changeable cooperative structure, which contains not only the forward supply chain, but also the reverse supply chain. Managing a CLSC is difficult because of the high degree of uncertainty and complexity in the CLSC system. It is necessary to consider the total profits of the whole system and the individual profits of node enterprises. Typically, effective coordination mechanism should be available to maximize the profits of the system and allocate the cooperative benefits under normal operation of the system. This paper mainly discusses the interactions among different enterprises in the CLSC under regulation of government:One direction is to analyze how the enterprises coordinate and cooperate, while the other direction is to study the fairness in allocating the cooperative benefit to each enterprise? This paper summarizes the previous research, and considers the effect of government’s subsidy mechanisms on CLSC. The product pricing model and coordination mechanism of closed-loop supply chain are analyzed with game theory and optimization theory. To further investigate the cooperative interactions in CLSC, the methods of cooperative game theory are utilized to study the CLSC equilibrium problem. This paper focuses on the following research problems:(1) Conduct researches on the cooperative models with government’s subsidy mechanisms in CLSC. On the first place, this paper analyzes the characteristic of subsidy mechanisms for collecting and recycling waste electrical and electronic equipment in China, and establishes a three stage CLSC system consisting of a single manufacturer, a single retailer and a single recycler. Then, various cooperative models are considered based on recent research and current cases. After that, the results of cooperative models are solved by utilizing game theory and optimization theory. Next, cooperative game theory is introduced to discuss a fair and reasonable profit allocation mechanism of supply chain alliance. Finally, the impact of government’s subsidy mechanisms on the optimal return rates and the supply chain profits is further analyzed in various cooperative models. These results can provide useful theoretical basis for the decision-making in the CLSC.(2) Research on cooperative models with government’s subsidy mechanisms in CLSC. In this situation, it is assumed that the cost of retailer and recycler is private information so that it is not public to other enterprises. Firstly, the problems of asymmetric cost information in different cooperative models are solved by using game theory and optimization theory. Then, the effect of asymmetric information on the cost of retailer and recycler is discussed for various cooperative models. Next, a numerical simulation is utilized to verify the above conclusions and make a visible comaparison on the results. Finally, it is further discussed the impact of government’s subsidy mechanisms on the optimal return rates and profits of CLSC under asymmetric cost information in various cooperative models.(3) Conduct researches on cooperative CLSC models under government’s subsidy mechanisms with two competing retailers/recyclers. First, this paper considers a three stages supply chain with Bertrand retailers. Various cooperative models of CLSC with competing retailers are established and discussed. For different cooperative models, the impacts on the optimal decisions and profits of CLSC are analyzed, while a numerical simulation is utilized to allocate the cooperative profits. Finally, how the government’s subsidy mechanisms affect the optimal return rates and the supply chain profits with two competing retailers is analyzed without exception. In addition, this paper considers a three stages supply chain with Bertrand retailers. Various cooperative models with competing recyclers are established and discussed. After that, the optimal decisions and supply chain profits are analyzed. As well as the optimal allocation of the cooperative profits with numerical simulation. In the end, how the government’s subsidy mechanisms affects the optimal return rates and the supply chain profits in various cooperative models with two competing recyclers is further analyzed.(4) Conduct researches of the uncertainty in cooperative CLSC models with government’s subsidy mechanisms. This paper mainly considers double uncertainty in both demand and return collection. Also, various cooperative models are considered, after which a numerical simulation is utilized to analyze the pricing strategy and system profits. Furthermore, different cooperative models are solved and their impact on the optimal decisions and supply chain profits is analyzed. Finally, this paper studies the impact of government’s subsidy mechanisms on the optimal return rates and supply chain profits in various cooperative models uncertainty.