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3328. Large stochastic facility location problems for insulation waste treatment: Reduction-based solution techniques

Invited abstract in session TB-23: Supply chain design in the circular economy, stream Circular Economy, Remanufacturing and Recycling .

Tuesday, 10:30-12:00
Room: 82 (building: 116)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Ruurd Buijs
Stochastics, CWI
2. Rob van der Mei
CWI
3. Elenna Dugundji
CWI
4. Sandjai Bhulai
Department of Mathematics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Abstract

The transition to the circular economy goes hand in hand with major redesigning challenges in manufacturing and logistics. Reverse supply chains form an important area of study within this context. The study of reverse supply chains touches upon many different disciplines, and from an Operations Research perspective provides interesting optimization problems. Our study concerns the reverse supply chain of insulation panels in the construction sector that contain rigid polyurethane foam (PUR). We examine a stochastic facility location model for locating treatment plants. Context specific constraints incorporating a cap on emissions and the economically rational behaviour of waste sorting companies are embedded into the model. Uncertainty affects the model, as the exact location and quantities of different types of insulation panels are not known exactly. Furthermore, some of the model parameters depend on future policy and advances in technology. For large buildings, we assume that the panels can be collected directly from the demolition site. As each of these buildings thus has an individual demand for collecting the material, both the model and the number of uncertain parameters to become very large. We investigate the performance of different methods of reducing the problem size for our model. We address methods to reduce the number of scenarios, and methods to reduce the number of demand points individually, and in synthesis with one another.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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