Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Cleaner Production

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro

A multiobjective optimization model for sustainable reverse logistics

in Indian E-commerce market
Pankaj Dutta a, *, Anurag Mishra a, Sachin Khandelwal b, Ibrahim Katthawala b
a
Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Powai, Mumbai, 400076, India
b
Flipkart Internet Pvt. Ltd., Embassy Tech Village, Devarabeesanahalli, Bellandur, Bengaluru, 560103, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A cleaner and sustainable environment is becoming a topmost priority for both owners and stakeholders
Received 16 February 2019 involved in businesses. It could be achieved by adopting better sustainable practices like reduction in
Received in revised form waste through process of recycling, recovery and remanufacturing which helps to minimize both the cost
14 November 2019
and environmental losses. With a recent surge in E-commerce market and online shopping in India there
Accepted 16 November 2019
Available online 18 November 2019
is a need for a more efficient, sustainable and reliable reverse logistics design by including cost, envi-
ronmental and social factors into consideration. With the factors considered above this paper proposes a
Handling Editor: Kathleen Aviso multi-objective logistics network model for the return products specifically pertaining to the Indian E-
commerce market. The components of this multi-echelon supply chain considered are Customer Mar-
Keywords: kets, Warehouses, Delivery Hubs, Landfills, Incineration Centres and Recycling Centres. The multi-
E-commerce objective optimization is done on the three fronts of sustainability, namely, economical, represented
Reverse logistics by cost, environmental, represented by environmental impact of different process, and social, which is
Sustainability represented by work days created and lost due to harms at work. Different technologies are considered in
Multi-objective
delivery hubs and mother warehouse which could result in a more efficient way of transferring and
India
processing products. Weighted goal programming (WGP) technique is used by weighing different ob-
jectives to minimize cost, environment impact and maximize the social responsibility. Finally, - model is
validated with a numerical example based on an online retail selling clothes. This study will help the
managers in deciding the number of facility stores and warehouses needed to open and operate, tech-
nology to be adopted for a more efficient way of transferring and processing products.
© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction implementing, and controlling the efficient, cost effective flow of

In the modern India, the value and importance of E-commerce is
growing day by the day as increasingly, consumers are starting to
prefer shopping from the comfort of their homes. The growth is
further fuelled by the large selection, transparency of prices across
retailers, availability of discounts, and rising internet penetration
across the Indian populace. The Indian e-commerce market is US$
50 Billion in size and expected to reach US$ 64 Billion by 2020 (E-
commerce sectoral report, 2018).
An important part of any Supply Chain (SC) is its Reverse
Logistics(RL). Reverse Logistics is “the process of planning,
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: pdutta@iitb.ac.in (P. Dutta), anuragkrmishra22@gmail.com
(A. Mishra), sachin.k@flipkart.com (S. Khandelwal), Ibrahim.k@flipkart.com
(I. Katthawala).
raw materials, in-process inventory, finished goods and related
information from the point of consumption to the point of origin for
recapturing value or proper disposal. Remanufacturing and refur-
bishing activities also may be included in the definition of reverse
logistics” (Hawks, 2006).
When it comes to e-commerce, the additional emphasis is on
returns management, a component of RL. According to Rogers et al.
“Returns management is defined as the process by which activities
associated with returns, gatekeeping, and avoidance that are
managed within the firm and across key members of the supply
chain” (Rogers et al., 2002). Returns management if handled effi-
ciently and smoothly could make the difference in firms, addi-
tionally it also helps to maintain the customer loyalty (Ro €llecke
et al., 2018; Ramanathan, 2011). The Worrisome thing is that still
RL or returns management is not being treated seriously by firms
and instead taken as a burden and unimportant for their growth
(Rogers et al., 2013).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.119348
0959-6526/© 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348

Another important objective that is looming over SC managers is

the issue of sustainability, firms are now being held responsible for
the environmental impact and social performance of the ecosystem
they create. The pressure is not only derived from the government
rules and regulations, but also from various stakeholders, em-
ployees, customers and NGOs. The 3 main elements of a sustainable
supply chain according to the Triple Bottom Line Approach are
(Nikolaou et al., 2013) e

1. Economic e This relates to the profitability of the supply chain.

The economic concept has been there before the concept of
sustainability and this is what most firms have been focusing on.
Profitability in the context of supply chain is essentially the
reduction of costs.
2. Environmental e The impact of all the different processes and
activities on the environment. It is certainly difficult to measure
the environment impact and less research has been done on this
front.
3. Social e The companies should not only restrict themselves to
seeing economic and environmental benefits but should push
themselves to achieve social benefits. This implies that com-
panies, besides making profit, must think about compliance
with legal necessities, ethical principles, and esteem for people
and communities in all their activities (Pai et al., 2016).

Very few research has been carried out applicable to the

application of sustainability in E-commerce. Most research has only
focused on exploring the sustainable supply chain scenario and
strategy. The uniqueness of this paper lies that it applies the
concept of Sustainable Supply Chain Management to RL, and
especially to returns management in the context of Indian E-com-
merce scenario. This paper has used the triple bottom line approach
and considered the economic, environmental and social factors.
Fig. 1 describes the framework of the paper.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2,
the literature in this area of research is reviewed. In Section 3, the
model related to the RL in E-commerce companies is formulated.
Section 4 deals with the solving methodology. Section 5 presents a
numerical example based on online retailer for cotton based
clothing. Section 6 includes the results obtained from solving the
numerical example using the WGP optimization method. Finally,
Section 7 presents the managerial implications and conclusion.
2. Literature review
This paper relates to the literature that considered RL-SC in
single channel structure and examines the location of delivery
centres, mother warehoused and recycling centres. It also considers
the technologies used in the various hubs and warehouses which
could help in increasing efficiency. We attempt to propose a model
for a RL network design problem, by considering the green and
sustainability issues and use a multi-objective Mixed Integer Linear
Programming (MILP) with goal programming to solve the model.
Henceforth, the literature survey in this study is subdivided into
three sections: (1) RL for supply chain (SC); (2) RL in E-Commerce
SC; (3) Sustainability.
2.1. Modelling of RL in supply chain
In one of the first study carried out by Fleischmann et al. (1997)
studied various characteristics and thereby suggest improvements
in RL system. The study categorised the dimension of RL system into
four major parts: Reuse motivation, type of recovered items, form of
reuse and involved actors. Also elaborated different models of RL
that exist, elaborated the distribution management and inventory
Fig. 1. Framework of the paper.
management. Pishvaee et al. (2009) developed an integrated for-
ward and reverse logistics network design. They formulated a MILP
with deterministic values and then a stochastic equivalent of the
model is developed using the scenario-based stochastic approach.
Lee and Chan (2009) aimed to find a relevant model for optimiza-
tion of products that offered an RL network based on radio-
frequency identification (RFID) technology. Das and Chowdhury
(2012) aimed to minimize the overall processing costs and they
suggested a recycling, logistics model for various electronic product
wastes. They had broken the recycling phase into four major phases
namely collection, separation, recycling and repair. Diabat et al.
(2013) had designed a multi-echelon Rl design to minimize the
total cost consisting of renting, inventory, carrying cost, material
handling and shipping cost. Further, Genetic algorithm and Artifi-
cial immune system was implemented to run the model and
compare the results. Godichaud and Amodeo (2015) had integrated
the process of return in the conventional SC and proposed ways in
which remanufacturing could be a profitable option by imple-
menting a well-sought inventory control policy. The model deals
with the stochastic demands and stochastic returns. This model is
further tested on three inventory policies corresponding to
different decision making.
Alshamsi and Diabat (2015) proposed a generic reverse logistics
design where they used a MILP) to optimize a RL network, which
 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348
decides on the number of sites to open, the capacities of the in-
spection centres and remanufacturing facilities. Galvez et al. (2015)
designed a RL network for a biogas plant. Network characterization
was done by defining different processes involved, actors, variables
associated are identified followed by describing different scenarios
possible and where the equipment could be located, additionally
defining the logistics network route and translating into mathe-
matical language using linear equations and then Analytic Hierar-
chy Process (AHP) was used to make a peer comparison.
Kumar et al. (2017) have proposed a multi-period, multi-echelon
closed loop supply chain model in there model they also address
the issue of vehicle routing in their model. The network flow was
such there were facility stores, distributors to receive goods directly
form the customer or the facility store, used goods directly collected
from the customer and distributed to the disassembly location then
gods for disposal are sent to the location of disposal and repaired to
the distribution center from where they could again be distributed
and recycled goods again to the facility location and from here they
again enter the supply chain. The products that were received from
the remanufacturing center and repairing center were sold to the
secondary markets. Then solved the case using Artificial immune
system and particle swarm optimization and compared the results
from both the algorithms. Bortolini et al. (2018) designed a bi-
objective fresh food supply chain networks by considering both
reusable and disposing packaging containers, they applied this
model in an industrial application in Italy and suggested a shipping
mix of both containers are required.
2.2. RL in E-Commerce SC
E-commerce is defined as sharing business information, main-
taining business relationships, operating business negotiations,
settling and executing agreements by means of telecommunication
networks, often the Internet, to achieve business transactions.
Kokkinaki et al. (2000) talks about the relation between RL activ-
ities and the information technology to examine these in the field
of E-Commerce applications. Dekker et al. (2002) through their
panel discussion related to RL in E-Commerce focussed on issues
pertaining E-commerce and RL, ranging from operations for
collection, selection and decision making for the optimal recovery
option of post-retail or surplus products nearing their life cycle. Yan
et al. (2012) have designed a reverse network design for e-com-
merce by considering four participants: factories, online retailers,
the 3 PLs and markets and only one type of the product for the E-
commerce enterprise and used a MILP to minimize the logistical
cost of the whole system.
Guo et al. (2017a,b) have proposed a multi-period model for the
reverse network design of the apparel E-commerce enterprises and
have eight elements in their model ranging from customers to
secondary markets with an aim to minimize the total logistics cost
as well as the number of primary recycling and union recycling
centre. The model was validated on a shanghai apparel ecommerce
enterprises. Guo et al. (2017a,b) had designed a Closed loop supply
chain (CLSC) network with an aim to reduce the carbon emissions
for fresh food e-commerce enterprises with route planning the
model had dual objectives one to reduce the overall cost of the
system and the other is to reduce the routing cost. The model was
validated on a shanghai commerce enterprise.
2.3. Sustainability and multiple goals in a RL network
The Integration of the green concepts and sustainability is an
evolving area of research. Along with sustainability the modelling
of reverse logistics network design with multiple objectives is
gaining interest of the researchers. The optimization in cost
3
function of model when coupled with additional goals like social,
customer satisfaction, enhancing service performance helps to
have a more robust and sustainable network design. Chaabane et al.
(2012) proposed a model for sustainable supply chain with multiple
goals of minimizing the costs and also reducing the negative effects
on the environment.
Paksoy et al. (2010) suggested a multi objective model for a
CLSC. The model aims to minimize the raw material and trans-
portation cost along with minimizing the CO2 emissions. Ramezani
et al. (2013) developed a stochastic multi objective model consid-
ering three echelons in forward direction and two echelons in
reverse supply chain. The paper aimed at maximizing the profit,
customer responsiveness and quality. Silva et al. (2013) had
developed a return-oriented packaging model to optimize the
waste generation and reduce the environmental impacts keeping in
mind the minimization the costs and use of resources. Nikolaou
et al. (2013) had developed a model which included both the so-
cial responsibility of companies and sustainability in the RL SC
system. Bing et al. (2014) designed a sustainable network for the
household plastic waste, here the authors addressed that efficiency
is not the only concern for recycling system, sustainability is also a
crucial issue. The paper dealt with plastic recycling in Netherlands,
where different scenarios were seen concerning the placement of
different facilities pertaining to separation, sorting and inspection
and compared with the base scenario. MILP was used to minimize
the transportation cost and environmental impact in the network.
Ramos et al. (2014) solved a multi-objective vehicle routing prob-
lem considering the sustainable aspect i.e. economic, environ-
mental, and social aspects in designing the RL systems.
Godichaud and Amodeo (2015) tried to optimize inventory level
and service performance. Two types of inventory returned in-
ventory and serviceable inventory were taken into consideration.
Three policies were presented with returned products and then
simulation was carried on the first objective to optimize the cost
function. The second objective was to optimize the fill rate i.e. the
fraction of demands that could be immediately satisfied from hand.
Govindan et al. (2016) had developed a fuzzy multi-echelon, multi-
period, multi-objective model for a reverse logistics network
design. The multiple goals considered are minimize the net present
cost, minimize the environmental impacts and optimizing the so-
cial responsibility. The model was further validated in a medical
syringe industry. Zohal and soleimani (2016) proposed a multi-
objective model in a closed green supply chain network which
had a seven-layer network with four echelons in the forward
supply chain and three echelons in the reverse supply chain. The
multiple objectives were to maximize the income and minimize the
CO2 emissions and cost. Gold industry real case study problem was
formulated and solved using Ant colony optimization.
Bal and Satoglu (2018) proposed a reverse network design for
Waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) with four goals
which are minimization of cost, minimization of environmental
effect, workforce balance and managing the legal targets. The
model is validated on WEEE of home appliances using goal pro-
gramming. Zarbakhshnia et al. (2019) have suggested a multi-
period, multi objective model for a green closed supply chain
where the first objective is to minimize the operational cost, second
objective was to minimize the CO2 emissions and third objective
was to optimize the number of machines used and then model was
validated in a home appliance industry.
The main contributions differentiating our efforts from pub-
lished papers on the subject are as follows.

Most of the above cited paper deal with the network design and
ignore the integration of both green and sustainable (such as
social issues). They have focused on the pure green and
4 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348
environmental issues. Therefore, it was considered to incorpo-
rate social issues besides economic and environmental aspects
into a model of decision making.

In all the studies, the economic objective is cost minimization
considering only the transportation aspect. Nevertheless, have
defined our economic objective function considering the
transportation and the processing costs as well.

Different technologies in delivery hubs and mother warehouses
was considered which could result in a more efficient way of
transferring and processing products.

On the whole, this is the first kind of work that proposed a
multi-objective optimization model for sustainable reverse lo-
gistics network design in E-commerce market.
3. Model formulation
In this research the attempt was to develop a model like that of
actual Indian large e-commerce firms. The importance of applica-
tion of this model increases if considered the fact that such firms
maybe undergoing certain changes after the introduction of GST.
3.1. Motivation
The inspiration for our model from the way actual E-commerce
enterprises are operating in the present scenario, with regards to
the warehouse model, wherein the stock is purchased and kept in
retailer owned warehouses. The levels/echelons in the actual sce-
nario are a step or 2 higher than in our model, but have taken 2
levels of warehouses, where warehouses will be owned by the firm
but the logistics be carried out by a third party. The idea having only
two levels in warehouse is not to further make the model complex
and also to ease on the mathematical formulation. since the
warehouse is just a part of our multi-echelon network design and
our main focus is here to optimize the whole network. The model is
illustrated in Fig. 2. The components of this multi-echelon supply
chain are Customer Markets, Fulfilment centres (Warehouses
owned by retailers), and Delivery Hubs, Disposal Centres (Landfills,
Incineration Centres and Recycling Centres are the three mediums
for disposal in this network).
3.2. Assumptions
The list of assumptions considered while formulating the model
are.

The demand, overall, as well as for each customer market, is
deterministic

The sellers to the retailer have their own pre-established facil-
ities and they supply to the online retailer using their own
logistics

There are only 2 levels of warehousing
Fig. 2. E-Commerce reverse logistics model structure.

There are only 3 disposal options for the product, namely,
recycling, incineration, and throwing in landfill

The warehouses will be owned and operated by the firm while
the logistics will be provided by third party

The distance between the customer market and delivery hub is
specified to be less than a certain distance.

The costs elements of the reverse logistics include and is limited
to transportation, processing at warehouse and fixed cost of
establishment of warehouse.
3.3. Model description
The forward logistics starts from the fulfilment centre and then
RL starts with returns management, when a customer requests
their order to be returned for reasons like product is defective or
want a size change for the item. Most products are disposed using
any of the three options i.e. Incineration, landfill and recycling
Centres.
Technology in Warehouses: The warehouses and delivery hubs
operated by different players often have different way of func-
tioning owing to the different technologies used in them. Some of
them maybe highly automated, some partly automated.
Objective of the work: In designing the RL network, our objective
will be to optimize the three essentials for sustainability;
1. Minimizing the total costs incurred in the network
2. Minimizing the total environmental impact due to trans-
portation and the different types of operations and recycling
processes e This impact will be quantified using the Eco Indi-
cator 99 methodology, which is based on the Life Cycle
Assessment (LCA) methodology
3. Maximization of Social responsibility e To quantify this, the no.
of jobs created, and no. of work days lost due to harms at work
will be considered (Pishvaee and Razmi, 2012).
The indexes of the different parameters used, the decision var-
iable, the objective functions, and constraints are explained below.
3.4. Mathematical formulation
Index
f Index of incineration centres f ¼ 1; 2; 3…………f
h Index of Delivery Hubs h ¼ 1; 2; 3…………H
l Index of landfills l ¼ 1; 2; 3…………L
m Index of customer markets m ¼ 1; 2; 3…………M
n Index of recycling centres (NGOs) n ¼ 1,2,3 … … … … …. N
th Index of technology at delivery hubs th ¼ 1; 2; 3…………Th
tm Index of technology at FC tm ¼ 1; 2; 3…………Tm
w Index of Fulfilment Centres (FC) w ¼ 1; 2; 3…………W
Binary Decision Variables
Y th
h If delivery hub ‘h’ with technology th is to be opened or not
Yf If incineration centre ‘n’ is to be selected for disposal or not
Yl If Landfill ‘l’ is to be selected for disposal or not
Yn If RC ‘n’ is to be selected for disposal or not
Y tw
w If FC ‘w’ with technology tw is to be opened or not
Parameters
am Demand from customer market’
bm Returns from customer market ‘m’
bmh Returns from customer market ‘m’ to delivery hub ‘h’
 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348 5

ghl Amount of returns sent to landfill ‘l’ from delivery hub ‘h’
shn Amount of returns sent to recycling centre ‘n’ from delivery
hub ‘h’
mhf Amount of returns sent to incineration centre ‘f’ from de-
livery hub ‘h’
jhw Amount of returns sent to FC ‘w’ from delivery hub ‘h’
from the Delivery Hubs to either the disposal centres or the FC.
To calculate the environmental impact, the Eco-Indicator 99
methodology has been used. This is a damage-oriented method for
Life Cycle Assessment which is much shorter than the original LCA
methodology. It was commissioned by the Ministry of Housing,
Spatial Planning, and Environment, Netherlands.

X X X   X X X tw  X X tl 
eith mh
ph þ eic bmh þ eipw þ eihw
c jhw þ c ghl
eipl þ eihl
m h th h w tw l tl
X X  X X  (1)
þ eitlpl þ eihn
c shn þ eitlpl þ eihf
c shf
h n h f

Athh Lost days due to harms at work at delivery hub ‘h’ using 3.4.1.2. Social objective function. To look into the social aspects,
technology ‘th’ given two indices are considered for social responsibility:(1) the
Atww Lost days due to harms at work at FC ‘w’ using technology number of created job positions; (2) the average lost days resulted
‘tw’ from harms at work.
C Transportation cost of item per km X X  X X 
Dhl Distance of delivery hub ‘h’ from landfill ‘l’ th tw
J th th
h  Ah Y h þ þ J tw
w  Aw Y w
tw
(2)
Dhn Aggregate distance of delivery hub ‘h’ from organization h th w tw
cluster ‘n’ for recycling
Dhf Distance of delivery hub ‘h’ from incineration centre ’f’
Dlw Distance of delivery hub ‘h’ from FC ‘w’
3.4.1.3. Economical objective function. This function simply sums
Dmh Distance of market ‘m’ from delivery hub ‘h’
up all the costs related to the reverse logistics supply chain. The
eimhc Environmental impact of transporting product from
objective will be to minimize the costs.
customer market ‘m’ to delivery hub ‘h’
X X  X X
eihwc Environmental impact of transporting product from de- tw 
livery hub ‘h’ to FC
F th th
h Yh þ F tw
w Yw
h th w tw
eihlc Environmental impact of transporting product delivery hub X X X 
‘h’ to landfill ‘l’ þ h bmh
C Dmh þ P th
eihnc Environmental impact of transporting product delivery hub
m h th
X X X  XX
‘h’ to recycling centre ‘n’ þ w jhw þ
C Dhw þ P tw ðCDhl þ Pl Þghl
eihfc Environmental impact of transporting product delivery hub h w tw h l
‘h’ to incineration centre ‘f’ XX X X 
þ ðC Dhn þ Pn Þshn þ C Dhf þ Pf mhf (3)
eitwpw Environmental impact of processing item at FC ‘w’ with
h n h f
technology tw
eithph Environmental impact of processing item at delivery hub ‘h’ Subject to Constraints:
with technology th
eipl Environmental impact of processing item at landfill ‘l’ Y th tm
h ; Y m ; Yl ; Yn ; Yf ε f0; 1g c h; l; w; n; f (4)
eipn Environmental impact of processing item at recycling centre
‘n’
eipf Environmental impact of processing item at incineration bmh  Oth
h c m; h; th (5)
centre ’f’
F th
h Fixed cost of establishing delivery hub ‘h’ with technology ‘th’ jhw  Otw
w c h; w; tw (6)
F tw
w Fixed cost of establishing FC ‘w’ with technology ‘tw’
J th
h Job opportunity created at delivery hub ‘h’ using technology am  bmh c m; h (7)
‘th’
J tw
w Job opportunity created at FC ‘w’ using technology ‘tw’ bmh ¼ mhf þ jhw þ shn þ ghl (8)
Othh Capacity at delivery hub ‘h’ with technology ‘th’
Otww Capacity at FC ‘w’ with technology ‘tw’ X
P th
h Processing cost at delivery hub ‘h’ with technology ‘th’
bmh ¼ bm c m; h (9)
P tw
w Processing cost at FC ‘w’ with technology ‘tw’
h

X
Y th
h  1 c h; th (10)
3.4.1. Objective functions th
The proposed model has three objective functions i.e. Economic,
environmental, and social.
X
Y tw
w  1 c w; tw (11)
tw
3.4.1.1. Environmental objective function. The environmental
objective function is defined based on: -The environmental impact bmh ; mhf ; jhw ; shn ; ghl 2I (12)
due to transportation from the customer markets to Delivery Hubs,
6 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348
According to the equation (1) minimizes the environment
impact due to transportation from market to DH, DH to FC, DH to
landfill, DH to RC, DH to IC along with the impact caused due to
processing at DH, FC, landfill, RC and IC. (2) optimizes the social
impact due to establishment of DH and FC. (3) Minimizes the
economic cost which includes fixed cost of setting up DH and MW,
transportation and processing cost at DH, MW, RC, IC, RC and
landfills. (4) ensures the binary constraint for decision variables.
(5)e(6) are the capacity constraints for DH and FC. (7) makes sure
that demand is greater than the returns. (8) maintains the volume
flow constraint where the total returns received is either sent to the
disposal centres or FCs. (9) maintains the volume flow constraint
for the demand. (10)e(11) maintains the technology constraint that
only one technology be selected for DH and MW. (12) enforces that
the demand and return be integer values.
4. Methodology
To solve the proposed multi-objective model, a WGP optimiza-
tion method is used. Goal Programming (GP) is tool for multi-
criteria decision making problem, which can be thought of as be-
ing an extension to linear programming to handle objectives that
generally opposing to each other. It was first introduced by Charnes
et al. in (1955), more explicitly defined by the same authors in 1961
(Charnes and Cooper, 1962) and further developed by Ijiri (1965)
during the 1960’s. Lee (1972) introduced the lexicographic goal
programming variant where the priority level was added, it is also
termed as ‘pre-emptive’ goal programming. Flavell (1976) intro-
duced Chebyshev goal programming where maximum deviation
from any goal was calculated. Charnes and cooper (1977) stated the
weighted goal programming method. Schniederjans and Hoffman
(1992) introduced the 0e1 goal programming. Further, Romero
(2001) extended the lexicographic goal programming. Though
there are several MODM techniques like goal attainment (Gembicki
&Haimes, 1975), Parametric Lp (Adler and Monterio, 1992), Lp
metric (Lee, 1980), fuzzy method (Tiwari et al., 1987), in this paper
we have used WGP to solve the proposed model. WGP helps the
decision maker whenever information relating to trade-offs be-
tween different objectives is needed. It also helps to make direct
comparisons between objectives. (Tamiz et al., 1998).
Larbani and Aouni (2011) in their GP model introduced a new
approach for generating efficient solutions. Sen and Nandi (2012)
have applied the GP in the field of planation management. Silva
et al. (2013) has applied multi-choice mixed integer goal pro-
gramming for the sugar and ethanol milling company. Huang et al.
(2018) developed a GP based model system to study the dynamic
analysis of community energy flow. Bal and Satoglu (2018) have
used a GP in their triple bottom line approach model for the WEEE
items. In the model deterministic values are assumed and a WGP
optimization method is applied by weighing all the three objectives
of our model iteratively and then finding a suitable combination
fulfilling the set goals.
Algebraically, a WGP has the following structure:
P
k
Minimize a ¼ ðai ni þ bi pi Þ, (13) where ai and bi are the
i¼1
weights for the deviational variables
subject to fi(x)þni-Pi ¼ bi, i ¼ 1. . .. m,
To deal with the three objectives in our example problem via GP,
we need to introduce additional variables. These variables will
handle the deviations from the “goal” for each objective. Setting a
numeric goal for each objective is up to the user.
Then the new equation linking our objective function (Z) and its
goals with the new variables will be
Zi - bþ -
i þ bi ¼ Gi i¼1,2,3.. (15)
Where i is the no. of goals for that objective function. Zi here de-
scribes the function f(x) that we are looking to minimize or maxi-
mize, Gi is the target value for the objective, bþ i represents the
positive deviation from the target value and b-i is the negative de-
viation from the target value.
For our 3 objectives we will have 3 such equations
Environmental: Z1i - bþ -
1i þ b1i ¼ G1i (16)
Social: Z2i - bþ -
2i þ b2i ¼ G2i (17)
Economical: Z3i - bþ -
3i þ b3i ¼ G3i (18)
The new combined objective function would require both the
bþ, b terms as our functions are both minimization and maximi-
zation functions. There are 2 ways to generate a single objective
function from these equations
Non-weighted: Min Z0 ¼ bþ þ þ
1i þ b2i þ b3i (19)
Weighted Approach: Min Z0 ¼ q1bþ þ þ
1i þ q2b2i þ q3b3i (20)
Where q1, q2, q3 are the weights assigned to objectives Z1, Z2, and Z3
respectively.
5. Numerical example
To validate the model, the proposed datasets are hypothesized.
The data within these has been gathered from formal and informal
surveys, meeting, and telephonic conversations with industry ex-
perts and some essential data has been taken from a Mumbai based
e-commerce company. The scales, sizes, and all approximations
used have been inspired from literature as well as experts from the
online retail industry. Detailed investigation has been done and
experience been gathered to formulate information for testing the
model. Below is a proposed hypothetical case study based on online
retailer for cotton based clothing (see Table 1).
5.1. Background
An online retailer of clothing items is considered. Since each
type of textile clothing has different waste disposal and recycling
procedure therefore for simplicity purposes, have taken a retailer
that sells all kinds of clothing item made of only cotton. While using
eco indicators it was important to be careful as each indicator
signifies different waste processing methods. Hence, choosing
cotton will help to take a uniform single environment impact value
vide the Eco-Indicator 99 set of values. The retailer serves in four
major markets as listed in Table 2. After outsourcing all the logistics
for so long, the firm has finally decided to invest in their own lo-
gistics in terms of warehouses to make way for reduced costs and
increasing volume of business. They will still be using third party
logistics providers for their transportation needs. They plan to set
up optimum delivery hubs nearest to any of these four markets. All
(14) these cities have their own disposal centres in the form a major
landfill or several Non-governmental organizations(NGOs) that are
spread throughout the city. They also must set up two fulfilment
centres with much larger capacities, that will serve these Delivery
Hubs. An analysis of their materials flow has suggested that it
would beneficial that they set up these fulfilment centres in any
two out of the four cities given in Table 2.
 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348 7

Table 1
Summary of literature review.

Researchers Reverse Logistics Sustainability E-commerce Objective

Economic Environmental Social Single Multiple

Fleischmann et al. (1997) ✓ ✓

Lee and Chan (2009) ✓
Millet (2011) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Das and Chowdhury (2012) ✓
Huang et al. (2018) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Das and Chowdhury (2012) ✓ ✓
Chaabane et al. (2012) ✓ ✓ ✓
Pishvaee and Razmi (2012) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Nikolaou et al. (2013) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Ardeshirilajimi and Azadivar (2015) ✓ ✓
Mohanty and Prakash (2014) ✓ ✓
Ramos et al. (2014) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Roghanian and Pazhoheshfar (2014) ✓ ✓ ✓
Guo et al. (2017a,b) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Govindan et al. (2016) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Bal and Satoglu (2018) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Zarbakhshnia et al. (2019) ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
Our Paper ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

The warehouses that they have to setup can either be labour

operated or involve considerable extend of automation. In deciding
Table 2 the two options, there is a trade-off in establishing fixed costs
Index of customer markets, fulfilment centres, and technology. versus operating costs. Also, if they decide to establish a traditional
Index Customer Index Fulfilment Index Technology warehouse, they would be employing more personnel, thus
Markets Center creating more jobs/work-days, on the other hand the number of
1 W 1 A 1 Traditional Non- harms to individuals in such a setting would be more causing loss in
2 X Automated work days. Alternatively, an automated warehouse would employ
3 Y 2 B 2 High Level of less people but there would be less harms due to work in this
4 Z Automation
scenario.
Fig. 3 represents how the actual problem would be represented
on a physical map.
The Indexes and locations for Delivery Hubs, Landfills, and
Recycling centres are same as that of Customer Markets.

5.2. Fixed cost derivation

The data about fixed costs is represented in Table 3. The distance

between delivery hubs and fulfilment centres is presented in
Table 4. The report was also able to provide with the aggregate
distance of the warehouse from the city centres, or the customer
markets, in the mentioned case. Same is mentioned in Table 5. The
distance between delivery hubs and landfill is presented in Table 6
and the distance between delivery hubs and recycling centres is
presented in Table 7.

5.3. Volume and distances

The analysis here is being executed for a single period, i.e. one
month. The complete demand for a month is appx. 10 million units.
The returns that the firm must manage from the above markets is to
the tune of 1 mil. (industry average of ~10%). As per past data,
majority of the returns, i.e. ~60% are due to a change in the size of
the clothing item. These items are simply sent back to the fulfilment
centre from the delivery Hub. The remaining 40% of the items are
defective and cannot be resold.

5.4. Processing and transportation costs

The wage is taken to be an approximate of 20,000 for each

worker, and the unit cost of electricity is taken 10 Rs, which is close
Fig. 3. Illustration of options for Delivery Hubs/Fulfilment Centre. to the commercial cost of one unit of electricity, although it varies
8 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348

Table 3 by states and cities. The units consumed are taken in proportion to
Fixed Cost of establishing Delivery Hubs and Fulfilment Centres with the volume handled by each hub. Note that there will be two
Technologies(Rs).
processing costs for each technology that is employed, that is
Delivery Hub options Fixed Cost with Tech1 Fixed Cost Tech2 because the electricity consumed in case of automated warehouse
W 17340000 22340000 will be higher leading to higher processing cost per unit. The
X 17100000 22100000 various potential processing at the delivery hubs and warehouses
Y 16300000 21300000 are given in Table 8.
Z 16900000 21900000
Although, the cost should vary with geographies due to differing
Fulfilment Centre Options Fixed Cost with Tech1 Fixed Cost Tech2 transporter services as well different diesel rates, it comes out to be
A 43350000 55850000 roughly around Rs. 1. Per km per unit, and thus, we will take the
B 36375000 48875000 same for simplicity of calculations.

5.5. Metrics for social and environmental objective

Table 4
Distance between delivery hub options and fulfilment Centres(km). The social objective functions need only two data sets. The
number of labourers employed at each of the possible warehouses
FULFILMENT CENTRES
and the number of harms at work that would occur due to the
A B
different technologies. The latter, again simplified by taking as 10%
DELIVERY HUBS W 20 2100 for non-automated warehouses and 2% for automated warehouses.
X 1400 1000 Both units are measured in work days that are utilised or lost. So,
Y 1450 1850
the no. of jobs must be multiplied by 30, considering our period is
Z 2200 350
one month, and the harms would set each worker on an average by
2 work days, so they will be multiplied by 2. The data about jobs
created and harms at work is given in Table 9.
Table 5 The environmental impact for processing at the warehouses is
Distance between customer markets and delivery Hubs(km). directly proportional to the electricity consumer per unit pro-
DELIVERY HUBS cessed. The same is mentioned in Table 10.
W X Y Z
6. Experimental results
CUSTOMER MARKETS W 1 1400 1450 2200
X 1400 1 2000 1300
Y 1450 2000 1 1650 Microsoft Excel’s Solver Tool was used to solve the above case.
Z 2200 1300 1650 1 By using this it was clearly identified which delivery centres,
mother warehouses, landfills and recycling centres are selected to
reduce all the three costs i.e. economic, environmental and social.
The results obtained are plotted in the form of graphs. Graphs
Table 6 are plotted while varying one objective goal value and keeping the
Distance between delivery hubs and Landfill(km). other two as constants. Following are the results obtained.
LANDFILL

W X Y Z 6.1. Varying Economic Objective Goal

DELIVERY HUBS W 10 1400 1450 2200
X 1400 10 2000 1300 On keeping the environmental and social objective goals to be
Y 1450 2000 10 1650 constant and varying the Economic objective goal, below results
Z 2200 1300 1650 10 were observed. The values of environmental and social goal were
kept constant were taken from the iteration 1 of Table 11. The
economical goal was changed regularly to see what changes it will
create in opening of facilities. Fig. 4 shows the results that were
Table 7
Distance between delivery hubs and recycling Centres(km). simulated for delivery hubs, mother warehouses, landfills and
recycling centres. For e.g. for economic goal of 67,00,00,000 it can
RECYCLING CENTRE
be seen that for delivery hub H1T1, H2T1, H4T2 are too be opened as
W X Y Z delivery hub with technology, W1T2 and W2T1 are opened as
DELIVERY HUBS W 50 1400 1450 2200 mother warehouse with technology. No landfills destination that
X 1400 50 2000 1300 are too be opened and N2, N3 are the recycling center that too be
Y 1450 2000 50 1650 opened. It can be see observed in case of delivery hubs, delivery hub
Z 2200 1300 1650 50
2 with the second technology i.e. H2T2 and delivery hub 3 with the

Table 8
Processing Cost per Unit for Delivery Hubs with both Technologies.

Delivery Hub options Tech 1 Tech 1

Wages(Rs) Electricity Consumed(Kwh) Processing Cost per Unit(Rs) Wages(Rs) Electricity Consumed(Kwh) Processing Cost per Unit(Rs)

W 1800000 150000 13 1125000 225000 9

X 1800000 150000 13 1125000 225000 9
Y 1250000 125000 11 781250 187500 7.75
Z 1250000 125000 11 781250 187500 7.75
 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348 9

Table 9
Jobs created, and harm accrued in work days.

Delivery Hub options Jobs (Work Days) T1 Jobs (Work Days) T2 Harms (Work Days) T1 Harms (Work Days) T2

W 1800 1125 12 2.4

X 1800 1125 12 2.4
Y 1500 937.5 10 2
Z 1500 937.5 10 2

Table 10
Environmental Impact of processes and transportation.

Clothes considered in 1 kg 2

Environmental impact in transportation to DH, LF and RC per ton 140

Environmental impact in transportation to DH, LF and RC per item 0.07
Environmental impact in transportation to FC per km 34
Environmental impact in transportation to FC per item 0.017
Environmental impact in Processing at Landfill per kg 4.2
Environmental impact in Processing at Landfill per item 2.1
Environmental impact in Processing at Recycling Centre per kg 8.2
Environmental impact in Processing at Recycling Centre per item 4.1
Environmental impact in Clothes processed per Kwh electricity consumed 100
Environmental Impact due to electricity per Kwh 60
Environmental Impact per cloth processes .6

Table 11
Total costs and selection of hubs, warehouses, landfill and recycling centres.

- Iteration 1 Iteration 2 Iteration 3 Iteration 4 Iteration 5 Iteration 6 Iteration 7 Iteration 8

Economic Goal 670000000 660000000 650000000 640000000 630000000 620000000 610000000 600000000
Environmental Goal 27000000 26000000 25000000 24000000 23000000 22000000 21000000 20000000
Social Goal 10000 9500 9000 8500 7500 7000 6500 6000
Economic Cost 670000000 659999852 629305242 638942809 598768560 606989662 609995405 533630033
Environmental impact 23173066 19367352 25000020.2 23999998.4 22999998.2 22000000.7 20999950 19999997.4
Social Cost 10223 9557.6 9140.7 8953.6 7956.7 7769.6 6585.6 8103.5
Delivery Hubs Opened H1T1, H2T1,H3T2, H1T1, H2T2,H3T2, H1T2, H2T2, H1T2, H3T2, H1T2, H2T2, H1T2, H3T2, H1T2, H3T2, H1T1, H2T1,
H4T2 H4T2 H4T2 H4T2 H4T2 H4T2 H4T2 H4T2
Mother Warehouse W1T2, W2T1 W1T2, W2T1 W1T1, W2T1 W1T1, W2T1 W1T1, W2T2 W1T2, W2T1 W1T2, W2T2 W1T2, W2T2
Opened
Landfills e e e L1,L3,L4 L3 L3,L4 L1 L1,L2,L4
Recycling Center N3,N4 N3,N4 N1,N4 e N1,N2 N1 N3,N4 e

first technology i.e. H3T1 were opened in most number of the cases.
In case of the mother warehouses it could be stated that mother
warehouse with first technology was opened in all cases except
one. With changing economic goals, the landfills were less
preferred compared to the recycling centres. In case for the recy-
cling centres N3, N4 are opened in most cases for most of the
economic goals.

6.2. Varying Environmental Objective Goal

In this example by keeping the economic and social objective

Fig. 4. Varying economic objective goal.
goals to be constant and varying the environmental objective goal,
following results were found. Fig. 5 shows the results that were
simulated for delivery hubs, mother warehouses, landfills and
recycling centres.
The values of economic and social goal were kept constant were
taken from the iteration 2 of Table 11. The environmental goal was
changed regularly to see what changes it will create in opening of
facilities. In Fig. 5 for example for environmental goal of
27,00,00,000 it can be seen that for delivery hub H1T1, H2T2, H3T1
are opened as delivery hub with technology, W1T1 and W2T1 are
opened as mother warehouse with technology. L1 as the sole
landfill destination that too be opened, with N2, N3 are the recy-
cling center that too be opened. It can clearly be seen that in case of
delivery hubs, delivery hub 1 with the first technology i.e. H1T1 and
10 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348
Fig. 5. Varying environmental objective goal.
delivery hub 2 with the first technology i.e. H2T1 were preferable in
most of the environmental goal varying.
In case of the mother warehouses it is seen that mother ware-
house two with technology i.e. W2T1 was opened in all cases
irrespective of the environmental goal. Landfill L1, L4 was preferred
landfills that were opened. Recycling centres N3 and N4 are
selected more as compared to the other two centres.
6.3. Varying Social Objective Goal
As shown in Fig. 6, - the economic and environmental objective
goals were kept constant and the social objective goal was varied.
The social goal was changed regularly to see what changes it will
create in opening of facilities. In Fig. 6 for example for social goal of
10,000 with the rest values of economic and environmental goal is
taken from iteration 10 of Table 11. It can be seen that for delivery
hub H1T1, H2T2, H3T1 and H4T2 are opened as delivery hub with
technology, W1T2 and W2T2 are opened as mother warehouse
with technology. No landfills are too being opened and N2, N3, N4
Fig. 6. Varying social objective goal.
are the recycling center that was too be opened. It is found that
delivery hub 4 with technology 2 in all cases irrespective of social
goal. Among the mother warehouses W2T21 was selected in most
of the cases. Landfill L3 was the only landfill that too be opened
with changing social goals, while N4 was the recycling centre
opened in all cases.
Weights were also assigned to all the three objective goals to
check whether it would influence selecting the hubs, warehouses,
landfills and recycling centres. Where W1 is the weight assigned to
the Economic goal, W2 is the weight assigned to the environmental
objective goal and W3 is the weight assigned to the Social goal. The
values were taken from the iteration 1 of Table 11. Fig. 7 shows the
results that were obtained on assigning different weights to the
objective functions, the different weights were run on the goal
values of 1st iteration from Table 11. The figure depicts how varying
the weights could impact the decision of opening different
facilities.
Fig. 7. Varying weights for objective functions.
 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348 11

680000000 12000

Economic Goal
660000000 10000

Social Goal
640000000 8000
620000000 6000
600000000
4000
580000000
400000000 600000000 2000

Econmic Cost 0 Social Cost

6000 7000 8000 9000 10000 11000

Fig. 8. The effect of (a) Economic goal Vs Economic Cost (b) Social Goal Vs Social Cost.

The Table 11 indicates how varying the costs and goals is minimum probability of ai and the constrained (9) can be defined
influencing the closing and opening of the delivery hubs, ware- as follows.
house, and recycling centres. While in all iterations the no of de- X 
livery hubs remained either two or three, the no of mother P bmh  bb m  am c m; h (21)
warehouse to be opened remained constant with two warehouses h
in each iteration. The only changes apart from the total cost
The following Table 12 provides the results of different values
incurred was the varying the no of landfilling centre and the
for economic cost, environmental cost and social cost for different
recycling centres to be used. In iteration 5 there is a one landfill
values of goals with varying chances or probability of realization of
center and two recycling centres while in iteration 8 there are only
the constraints. Then compared the uncertain case with certain
landfill and in iteration1 there are only recycling centres which has
market return and it was found that the percentage changes in
led to the steep rise in the overall cost. There are trade-offs in each
social cost is quite high whereas the changes in environmental cost
iteration among the three costs and a perfect balance is to be
is insignificant. The Fig. 9 compares the cost with different proba-
decided by the manager by taking the future environmental im-
bilities for the chance constraints in certain vs uncertain market,
pacts and social responsibility into account. The Fig. 8(a) shows
viz.; (a) Economic costs in uncertain case was higher in most of the
Economic goal vs economic cost and with increasing goal the
cases, (b) Environmental cost showed a varying trend while with
economic cost also increases steadily then after a point the rise in
the first set of goal the environmental cost in uncertain market was
economic cost slows down with increase in economic goal. Fig. 8(b)
higher or equal to the certain market while with the second set of
shows Social goal versus social cost and both the goal and cost are
goals certain market cost was higher and (c) Social cost in uncertain
increasing together, henceforth then economic goal decreases with
market was always higher than the certain market in all the
the rising social goal to accommodate the target social target and to
scenarios.
accommodate a small increase in the social goal requires a high
increase in the cost once the social target is reached.
7. Managerial implications and conclusions

6.4. Uncertain Return Market
In real situation, the return product market may be uncertain
and in such scenario, the exact amount of return products may not
be known with certainty. In order to capture this uncertainty in the
model, it was assumed that the return products capacity in the
“Return Market” follows normal distribution ( b b Þ with specified
m
mean and standard deviation (10% of its mean). Thus the associated
constrained of expected market return would become stochastic in
nature. For this-chance-constrained programming (Charnes and
Cooper, 1959) was used where the constraint i is realized with a
This study has significant prospects and implications for SC
Managers and even the leadership of online retailing companies.
Online retailing is still a relatively new industry in India and
managers are yet to explore the many distinct opportunities that
are present to optimize costs and other factors. This study is first of
its kind where the network designed in the context of e-commerce
and numerical example which is based on online retailer for cotton
based clothing is specific to the Indian context from where the
managers can take a clue of implementing it to their firm by varying
the goals as per their firm need and expanding the model as when
required, by keeping the multiple objectives as per the model. The

Table 12
Comparing costs in Uncertain Vs Certain Market.

Uncertain Market return Certain Market return % change in costs due to uncertainty

Costs EC EVC SC EC EVC SC % Eco. Change %Env. Change %S ocial change

1-a

Goals: Eco-660000000,Env.-26000000, Social:-9500

0.8 665785687 26000000 12516 659999852 19367352 9557.6 0.8766419 1.0049469 30.95337742
0.9 658062383 19780174 12516 659999852 19367352 9557.6 0.293556 0.0625489 30.95337742
0.95 660007375 19719530 12516 659999852 19367352 9557.6 0.0011398 0.0533603 30.95337742
0.99 659998081 18873139 12516 659999852 19367352 9557.6 0.000268 0.074881 30.95337742
Goals: Eco-650000000,Env.-25000000, Social:-9000
0.8 649999550 22424775 10844 629305242 25000020 9140.7 3.2884373 0.40922 18.63424027
0.9 658062383 19780174 10844 629305242 25000020 9140.7 4.5696649 0.829462 18.63424027
0.95 650000420 19512579 10844 629305242 25000020 9140.7 3.2885755 0.871984 18.63424027
0.99 659998081 18873139 10844 629305242 25000020 9140.7 4.8772578 0.973594 18.63424027
12 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348

implementation of this will help managers optimize their supply
chain to be sustainable as firms are coming under pressure to
reduce their carbon footprint, increase their social deliverance to
the society and hence by adopting the important triple bottom line
approach, striking the right chord by balancing the economic,
environmental and social costs as while optimizing the total cost he
has to keep in mind the environmental impacts and social re-
sponsibility into account. This study will help the managers in
deciding the number of facility stores and warehouses needed to
open and operate, technology to be adopted for a more efficient
way of transferring and processing products. The strategic long
term decisions could then be taken relating to the opening of new
warehouses and which technology to be adopted for the respective
delivery hub and mother warehouse. The numerical example will
help to identify the different weights to give to different objectives
while minimizing the costs, maximizing the social responsibility
and achieving the set goals.
A model to set up reverse logistics supply chain is formulated in
this paper. This paper specifically caters to the existing and up-
coming e-commerce firms aid in decision making towards setting
up of their RL. The novelty of this paper lies in that it combines the
concepts and ideas of Sustainability, e-commerce in the Indian
context, and RL, with a focus on returns management. The SC
structure used here is a compact and combined version of the one
being used by existing Indian e-commerce firms and sections
derived from literature covering concepts relating to the triple
bottom line approach.
GP was used to solve this model. A numerical example was
formulated, the data for which was determined using inputs from
experts from the online retailing industry and a specific firm in
Mumbai, dealing in clothing accessories like t-shirts. The solution was
obtained using Microsoft Excel. The solution was tested by varying the
goals for each objective vehemently and changing weights for
different goals to get the full extent of the flexibility of the model.

Uncertain Vs Certain Market

670000000
660000000
650000000
640000000
630000000
620000000
610000000
0.8 0.9 0.95 0.99 0.8 0.9 0.95 0.99

Uncertain EC Certain EC

(a)

Uncertain Vs Certain Market

30000000
25000000
20000000
15000000
10000000
5000000
0
0.8 0.9 0.95 0.99 0.8 0.9 0.95 0.99

Uncertain EnvC Certain EnvC

(b)

Uncertain Vs Certain Market

15000

10000

5000

0
0.8 0.9 0.95 0.99 0.8 0.9 0.95 0.99

Uncertain SC Certain SC

(c)

Fig. 9. Cost comparison with different probabilities for the chance constraints in certain vs uncertain market: a) Economic costs b) Environmental costs c) Social costs.
 P. Dutta et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 249 (2020) 119348
There exists plenty of scope for further research on this topic.
Studies could be done firstly, combining forward and reverse lo-
gistics to obtain a complete and definitive model. Next, a more
varied range of products could be used to test out the model.
Additionally, this could be made a multi-period model and to
duplicate life-like scenarios, certain factors like total and individual
demands of the customer market could be made uncertain in
nature.
Author contribution
Pankaj Dutta: Conceptualization, Writing- Original draft prep-
aration and Supervision.
Anurag Mishra. Methodology, Formal analysis and Writing-
Reviewing.
Sachin Khandelwal: Software, Validation, Data curation.
Ibrahim Katthawala: Editing, Visualization.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
References
Adler, I., Monteiro, R.D., 1992. A geometric view of parametric linear programming.
Algorithmica 8 (1e6), 161e176.
Alshamsi, A., Diabat, A., 2015. A reverse logistics network design. J. Manuf. Syst. 37,
589e598.
Ardeshirilajimi, A., Azadivar, F., 2015. Reverse supply chain plan for remanufactur-
ing commercial returns. Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 77 (9e12), 1767e1779.
Bal, A., Satoglu, S.I., 2018. A goal programming model for sustainable reverse lo-
gistics operations planning and an application. J. Clean. Prod. 201, 1081e1091.
Bing, X., Bloemhof-Ruwaard, J.M., van der Vorst, J.G., 2014. Sustainable reverse lo-
gistics network design for household plastic waste. Flex. Serv. Manuf. J. 26
(1e2), 119e142.
Bortolini, M., Galizia, F.G., Mora, C., Botti, L., Rosano, M., 2018. Bi-objective design of
fresh food supply chain networks with reusable and disposable packaging
containers. J. Clean. Prod. 184, 375e388.
Chaabane, A., Ramudhin, A., Paquet, M., 2012. Design of sustainable supply chains
under the emission trading scheme. Int. J. Prod. Econ. 135 (1), 37e49.
Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W., 1959. Chance-constrained programming. Manag. Sci. 6
(1), 73e79.
Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W., 1962. Programming with linear fractional functionals.
Nav. Res. Logist. Q. 9 (3-4), 181e186.
Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W., 1977. Goal programming and multiple objective opti-
mizations: Part 1. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 1 (1), 39e54.
Charnes, A., Cooper, W.W., Ferguson, R.O., 1955. Optimal estimation of executive
compensation by linear programming. Manag. Sci. 1 (2), 138e151.
Das, K., Chowdhury, A.H., 2012. Designing a reverse logistics network for optimal
collection, recovery and quality-based product-mix planning. Int. J. Prod. Econ.
135 (1), 209e221.
Dekker, R., Zuidwijk, R., Pappis, C., Ryan, S., Kokkinaki, A., 2002. Ecommerce for
reverse logistics. In: ECIS 2002 Proceedings, 23.
Diabat, A., Kannan, D., Kaliyan, M., Svetinovic, D., 2013. An optimization model for
product returns using genetic algorithms and artificial immune system. Resour.
Conserv. Recycl. 74, 156e169.
E-commerce Sectoral Report, 2018. Indian Brand Equity Foundation.
Flavell, R.B., 1976. A new goal programming formulation. Omega 4 (6), 731e732.
Elsevier.
Fleischmann, M., Bloemhof-Ruwaard, J., Dekker, R., Van der Laan, E., van Nunen, J.,
Van Wassenhove, L., 1997. Quantitative models for reverse logistics. Eur. J. Oper.
Res. 103, 1e17.
Galvez, D., Rakotondranaivo, A., Morel, L., Camargo, M., Fick, M., 2015. Reverse lo-
gistics network design for a biogas plant: an approach based on MILP optimi-
zation and Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP). J. Manuf. Syst. 37, 616e623.
Gembicki, F., Haimes, Y., 1975. Approach to performance and sensitivity multi-
objective optimization: the goal attainment method. IEEE Trans. Autom. Control
20 (6), 769e771.
Godichaud, M., Amodeo, L., 2015. Efficient multi-objective optimization of supply
chain with returned products. J. Manuf. Syst. 37, 683e691.
Govindan, K., Paam, P., Abtahi, A.R., 2016. A fuzzy multi-objective optimization
model for sustainable reverse logistics network design. Ecol. Indicat. 67,
753e768.
Guo, J., Liu, X., Jo, J., 2017a. Dynamic joint construction and optimal operation
strategy of multi-period reverse logistics network: a case study of Shanghai
13
apparel E-commerce enterprises. J. Intell. Manuf. 28 (3), 819e831.
Guo, J., Wang, X., Fan, S., Gen, M., 2017b. Forward and reverse logistics network and
route planning under the environment of low-carbon emissions: a case study of
Shanghai fresh food E-commerce enterprises. Comput. Ind. Eng. 106, 351e360.
Hawks, K., 2006. What is reverse logistics. Reverse Logist. Mag. 1 (1).
Huang, Zishuo, Yu, Hang, Chu, Xiangyang, Peng, Zhenwei, 2018. A novel optimiza-
tion model based on game tree for multi-energy conversion systems. Energy
150 (C), 109e121. Elsevier.
Ijiri, Y., 1965. Management Goals and Accounting for Control, vol. 3. North Holland
Pub. Co.
Kokkinaki, A.I., Dekker, R., Van Nunen, J.A.E.E., Pappis, C., 2000, January. An
exploratory study on electronic commerce for reverse logistics. Supply Chain
Forum Int. J. 1 (1), 10e17. Taylor & Francis.
Kumar, V.N.S.A., Kumar, V., Brady, M., Garza-Reyes, J.A., Simpson, M., 2017. Resolving
forward-reverse logistics multi-period model using evolutionary algorithms.
Int. J. Prod. Econ. 183, 458e469.
Larbani, Moussa, Aouni, Belaid, 2011. A new approach for generating efficient so-
lutions within the goal programming model. J. Oper. Res. Soc. 62, 175e182.
Lee, S.M., 1972. Goal Programming for Decision Analysis. Auerbach Publishers,
Philadelphia.
Lee, D.T., 1980. Two-dimensional Voronoi diagrams in the Lp-metric. J. ACM 27 (4),
604e618.
Lee, C.K.M., Chan, T.M., 2009. Development of RFID-based reverse logistics system.
Expert Syst. Appl. 36 (5), 9299e9307.
Millet, D., 2011. Designing a sustainable reverse logistics channel: the 18 generic
structures framework. J. Clean. Prod. 19 (6e7), 588e597.
Mohanty, R.P., Prakash, A., 2014. Green supply chain management practices in India:
an empirical study. Prod. Plan. Control 25 (16), 1322e1337.
Nikolaou, I.E., Evangelinos, K.I., Allan, A., 2013. A reverse logistics social re-
sponsibility evaluation framework based on the triple bottom line approach.
J. Clean. Prod. 56, 173e184.
Pai, P.F., Chen, L.C., Lin, K.P., 2016. A hybrid data mining model in analyzing
corporate social responsibility. Neural Comput. Appl. 27 (3), 749e760.
€
Paksoy, T., Ozceylan, E., Weber, G.W., 2010, June. A multi objective model for opti-
mization of a green supply chain network. In: AIP Conference Proceedings, vol.
1239. AIP, pp. 311e320. No. 1.
Pishvaee, M.S., Razmi, J., 2012. Environmental supply chain network design using
multi-objective fuzzy mathematical programming. Appl. Math. Model. 36 (8),
3433e3446.
Pishvaee, M.S., Jolai, F., Razmi, J., 2009. A stochastic optimization model for inte-
grated forward/reverse logistics network design. J. Manuf. Syst. 28 (4), 107e114.
Ramanathan, R., 2011. An empirical analysis on the influence of risk on relationships
between handling of product returns and customer loyalty in E-commerce. Int.
J. Prod. Econ. 130 (2), 255e261.
Ramezani, M., Bashiri, M., Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, R., 2013. A new multi-objective
stochastic model for a forward/reverse logistic network design with respon-
siveness and quality level. Appl. Math. Model. 37 (1e2), 328e344.
Ramos, T.R.P., Gomes, M.I., Barbosa-Po voa, A.P., 2014. Planning a sustainable reverse
logistics system: balancing costs with environmental and social concerns.
Omega 48, 60e74.
Rogers, D.S., Lambert, D.M., Croxton, K.L., García-Dastugue, S.J., 2002. The returns
management process. Int. J. Logist. Manag. 13 (2), 1e18.
Rogers, D.S., Lembke, R., Benardino, J., 2013. Reverse logistics: a new core compe-
tency. Supply Chain Manag. Rev. 17 (3).
Roghanian, E., Pazhoheshfar, P., 2014. An optimization model for reverse logistics
network under stochastic environment by using genetic algorithm. J. Manuf.
Syst. 33 (3), 348e356.
Ro€ llecke, F.J., Huchzermeier, A., Schro€der, D., 2018. Returning customers: the hidden
strategic opportunity of returns management. Calif. Manag. Rev. 60 (2),
176e203.
Romero, C., 2001. Extended lexicographic goal programming: a unifying approach.
Omega 29, 6.
Schniederjans, Marc J., Hoffman, James, 1992. Multinational acquisition analysis: a
zero-one goal programming model. Elsevier Eur. J. Oper. Res. 62 (2), 175e185.
October.
Sen, N., Nandi, M., 2012. Goal programming, its application in management sectors-
special attention into plantation management: a review. Int. J. Sci. Res. Publ. 2,
1e6.
Silva, D.A.L., Reno, G.W.S., Sevegnani, G., Sevegnani, T.B., Truzzi, O.M.S., 2013.
Comparison of disposable and returnable packaging: a case study of reverse
logistics in Brazil. J. Clean. Prod. 47, 377e387.
Tamiz, M., Jones, D., Romero, C., 1998. Goal programming for decision making: an
overview of the current state-of-the-art. Eur. J. Oper. Res. 111 (3), 569e581.
Tiwari, R.N., Dharmar, S., Rao, J.R., 1987. Fuzzy goal programmingdan additive
model. Fuzzy Sets Syst. 24 (1), 27e34.
XiaoYan, Q., Yong, H., Qinli, D., Stokes, P., 2012. Reverse logistics network design
model based on e-commerce. Int. J. Organ. Anal. 20 (2), 251e261.
Zarbakhshnia, N., Soleimani, H., Goh, M., Razavi, S.S., 2019. A novel multi-objective
model for green forward and reverse logistics network design. J. Clean. Prod.
208, 1304e1316.
Zohal, M., Soleimani, H., 2016. Developing an ant colony approach for green closed-
loop supply chain network design: a case study in gold industry. J. Clean. Prod.
133, 314e337.