Sustainable Supply Chain Design: A Configurational Approach

Table 3

Sustainable supply chain processes and their definitions.

SSC Process	Definition	Related literature
Plan
Inventory control and management	Processes that manage inventory regarding the high variability and uncertainty in time, quality and quantity of returns, and demand for recovered materials.	[103–110]
Production and capacity management	Processes that plan production and manage the capacities of manufacturers and recovery centres to achieve a balance between demand and returns considering the high degree of uncertainty and complexity in recovery management systems.	[75, 81, 84, 103]
Green supplier management	Processes that select and evaluate suppliers considering environmental issues; cooperate with them to enhance environmental performance and promote the initiatives and practices for greening the suppliers.	[45, 46, 108, 111–113]
Green marketing	Processes that promote a green image and persuade customers that the green and environmentally friendly products meet their requirements.	[114, 115]
Source	Processes that procure materials and components that have a lower impact on the environment and also consider recovered products as a valuable source of materials and components.	[40, 116]
Make	Processes that produce products that have a lower impact on the environment.	[117, 118]
Deliver	Processes that provide both original and recovered products to meet the uncertain demand, including order management, environmentally friendly packaging, and sustainable transportation systems.	[119, 120]
Return
Collect	Processes that involve the collection operations of returned products, inspection, and separation of recoverable products from disposal and delivering the recoverable products to related places.	[34, 117]
Recover	Processes that transform returned and used products to reusable products, typically including repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, cannibalizing, and recycling.	[34, 119]
Dispose	Processes that include land filling or incinerating products that are rejected at the “Collect” process.	[40, 117]